


The Tale of Sir Seungmin and the Dragon

by jeonghoneys



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Knights, Blacksmith Hyunjin, Changbin and Jeongin are brothers, Day6 and other bands have cameos, Dragon Changbin, Dragon Jeongin, Gen, M/M, Mentioned Other K-pop Artist(s), The Once and Future King References, Town Crier Minho, and Brian and Jisung, brian and jae get lost a lot, can you tell i love that book and it had a lasting influence on me, he yells about how much he loves chan, i did Not expect this to get so long, i think that's very big brain of me tbh, knight chan, knight felix, knight jisung, knight seungmin, knights in Olde England, so are Seungmin and Wonpil, they're like, this was really fun to write i hope you like it, use of 'little knight' as a pet name because i said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeonghoneys/pseuds/jeonghoneys
Summary: There are lots of stories about knights and dragons. Most of them go like this: a knight meets a dragon, they have a long and vicious battle, and the knight emerges victorious, having vanquished the Great Evil of the dragon.This story goes a little more like this: a knight meets a dragon, they become friends, and then they become more-than-friends - all without drawing a sword on each other.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Felix, Kim Seungmin/Yang Jeongin | I.N, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 43





	The Tale of Sir Seungmin and the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilithStarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilithStarlight/gifts).



> this is for lily - lily, i love you, happy birthday, and i hope this year treats you well 💖
> 
> take care - there is a scene where there's a castle made of food; i don't know if that might be a trigger for anyone? it's the second scene overall, in between the first two line breaks - if you skip it, let me know, i can tell you in the comments if you want a summary.
> 
> tysm to pri for helping me with the ending - you're a saviour

Our story starts with Sir Seungmin trotting into the woods. It’s the height of the Age of Chivalry; Arthur’s Order of Chivalry is up and running as smoothly as it ever can, which means that almost everyone is a knight. For example, Seungmin is currently searching for his brother, Sir Wonpil, who was stolen by some Great Evil away from his questmates. His questmates are also out looking for him, as well as Seungmin’s friend Sir Jisung, who, upon hearing that Sir Wonpil had been stolen, had immediately attached himself to his own brother’s side. Sir Younghyun hadn’t seemed to mind, although Jisung joining his and Sir Jaehyung’s search party did mean that they couldn’t allow themselves to accidentally get lost as soon as something starts singing to them from the depths of the trees, or the depths of the sea, or the depths of whatever cave they find themselves walking past, as is their wont. Oh well.

Seungmin trots deeper into the forest. I would like to say that he does so remembering all about the tales that tell of dragons - majestic creatures, prowling silently through the land, sneaking up on unsuspecting countrymen and gobbling them up. Appearing in towns and disappearing the next day along with all the metals in the place, and perhaps a young maiden as well. Stalking silently up to castles, emptying the King's treasury and robbing him of his heirs. Turning up when you walk into the forest, desperate, to make a deal with a faery; giving you advice that works despite how outlandish it is - or eating you. Majestic, undoubtedly - and creatures, undoubtedly. I would like to say that he remembers, but in reality, Seungmin is, quite sadly, preoccupied with the momentary loss of his own flesh and blood (and the loss of a Cornish pasty that had been about to come out of the oven, right before he had to set off. Seungmin is perfectly aware that there’s no way Sir Felix hasn’t eaten it by now, especially since it was baked in  _ his  _ oven and the blacksmith, Hyunjin, had dropped round at the same time Seungmin had.) Seungmin quietly mourns the loss of his Cornish pasty, pulling on his reins and crying, ‘Whoa girl!’ and dismounts. He is definitely not thinking about the rumours that a dragon has claimed these woods and kicked Robin Hood out, as he walks deeper into the wood, leading his horse, Puppy, and calling loudly so that his voice echoes in all the crevices of the trees, hoping that Wonpil will hear him and have the good sense to shout back. He is not thinking of the dragon  _ at all,  _ and that is why, when he hears the voice, the first thing he does is jump so high that when he lands on the ground, his visor slams down. The ring of the metal echoes tinnily in his mind. Maybe his helmet is vibrating from the force of it; maybe it's just the echo. Seungmin pushes his visor back up and turns to see who spoke.

No one, apparently, is who spoke, because when Seungmin turns around, he can clearly see that there is no one in the forest apart from him and his horse. Maybe it was the wind, Seungmin thinks, or a strange animal call. He shrugs and tightens his grip on the reins wound around his fist, moving to lead Puppy on. Seungmin has far more important things to do than wait for the wind to  _ speak  _ to him.

As if gripped with an intense desire to prove him wrong, something steps out from the trees behind Seungmin. Lord, but Seungmin  _ hates  _ when the environment around him proves him wrong. He doesn’t hear whatever the creature is step on any twigs, he doesn’t have to fight to regain his balance because its steps shake the earth - no, none of that happens, but suddenly Seungmin can  _ feel  _ a  _ presence  _ behind him. All right. This is all right. Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut and lets his knuckles go white gripping the leather of Puppy’s reins. All he has to do is move away from this part of the forest before the thing can speak again, and he’s free. All he has to do is pretend it’s not there, and he’ll be safe.

A thick, heavy scaled thing lands right across his path before he manages to take even five steps. 

Puppy shies, filling the non-silence of the forest with her shrill, panicked cries. Vaguely, Seungmin registers that the birds are still singing. This is presumably a good thing, but Seungmin is rather too busy trying to swallow down his panic to spare this any thought. He drops the reins and dodges to the side - being trampled by a spooked horse isn’t particularly high on his list of Acceptable Ways To Die. ‘Whoa, girl,’ he says, slowly edging closer. ‘Easy, easy, it’s all right.’ Eventually, Puppy calms down, and Seungmin turns his gaze back to the thick, heavy scaled thing. It’s mostly red, deep, berry red, with hints of gold here and there that shine where the tapered end of it flicks about. 

The thick, heavy scaled thing looks a lot like a tail.

The voice speaks again, louder, dripping with richness. There’s a slight hiss behind the words, a sibilance that even without paying attention to the words, Seungmin can tell means that he’s being  _ asked  _ something. Seungmin stares at the tail and refuses to listen. He's going to get Puppy back under control, he's going to re-mount her and he's going to canter off and search for his brother somewhere else, where things that might be dragons don't talk to him. He's going to leave, and he's going to ignore the dragon, and he's definitely not going to turn around and drag his gaze up the tail to the body, so that he sees the beast in its entirety and has to accept that it is real.

The circle of the dragon around Seungmin and Puppy tightens, the dragon drawing his tail closer to himself. Seungmin tangles his hand in Puppy's reins and squeezes his eyes shut. His hand reaches for his sword, and Seungmin is suddenly immensely grateful that if Wonpil  _ had  _ to go missing, he at least had the grace to do it during a quest, meaning that Seungmin came prepared to  _ fight  _ to get him back. It would be nice if Seungmin had had a search-partner for this search party, but all the others are out looking for Wonpil somewhere else, and Sir Chan and Felix had to stay just in case something chose this particular day to attack the town, and so here Seungmin is, alone in the woods with a dragon closing the space between them; the circle of him and Puppy growing smaller and smaller and the dragon's tail tighter and tighter around them with each unsteady  _ ba-dum _ of his heart. Seungmin doesn't open his eyes.

Something brushes against his arm, making Seungmin more aware of the sensation of his armour, and suddenly the air around him is warm, is warm, is  _ warm _ , and Seungmin thinks that if he opens his eyes the air will be shimmering with the heat in ways he’s only read about. There’s the sound of an exhale, and it doesn’t shake the earth but it does shake Seungmin; and hot air hits Seungmin’s face; and Seungmin can’t do this anymore, if the dragon is going to eat him then the dragon is going to eat him, and he has to at least  _ know- _

\- and he opens his eyes.

_ Teeth _ , is the first thing his brain helpfully supplies. Teeth, and lots of them; a mouth practically  _ dripping  _ with the type of teeth particularly arrogant people like to make daggers out of - only the dragon’s teeth are massive, more suited to a sword than a dagger. They’re the kind of teeth, Seungmin can’t help but think, that make it incredibly easy to swallow a person in a few bites.

Thank god for armour. At least the dragon will think twice before eating him. Hopefully.

With this important thought process out of the way, the next thing that Seungmin notices is  _ blood, _ which is simultaneously a relief and terrifying. A relief because if the dragon has already eaten, then he won't be hungry, and terrifying because  _ the dragon has eaten, _ and what has he eaten? This concern is, in reality, unnecessary, since the dragon  _ hasn’t  _ got a blood-coated maw but is, in fact, mainly red in colour. However, we will allow Seungmin to make this mistake because he is terrified and as such should be allowed to have a few misconceptions, as a treat - and in any case, mistaking red scales for blood on a dragon is an understandable conclusion to jump to.

The third thing that Seungmin notices is that the dragon’s eyes are so bright that they’re  _ painful  _ to look at. They definitely glow, but Seungmin has to wince and blink, tears welling up in his own eyes, if he wants to meet the dragon’s for any particular period of time. Seungmin has been described as plucky, but he’s also been called careful and a stickler for following the rules, so looking the dragon in the eyes isn’t on the top of his to-do list anyway. With all due respect, he’d rather not.

Somewhere in the back of the ringing in Seungmin's mind, Puppy shrieks again. She tries to make a run for it, and suddenly the coils of the tail around them have grown, looped one, two, three times and trapped them even more inside the circle of dragon. The dragon curves his head around to look at Puppy. He exhales once, and Puppy falls silent. The air around her is tinged with red.

Seungmin swears he can feel his heart stop for a moment. ‘What did you do to her?’ he whispers, voice scratchy with fear, the lump in his throat almost swallowing his words. His legs are shaking; the clink of his scabbard hitting his leg a sharp, repetitive sound that fills his ears until he can’t hear anything else, and when the dragon speaks the sound almost drowns him out.

‘Calm down, knight,’ the dragon says, and this time Seungmin comprehends the dragon’s words, forces himself to accept that a dragon is really talking to  _ him _ . The hiss curling on the edges of the dragon’s tongue gives his words an echo. He sounds amused. It also sounds like he says  _ knight  _ and not  _ Knight _ , as is proper. ‘That’s what I did to your horse, after all. Calmed her down.’

‘She’s still alive?’ Seungmin stumbles forward and grabs at her reins again, tangling his fingers in them in a way that will be hard to untangle. He takes one more unsteady step and finds himself tipping into Puppy’s side, leaning against her thankfully with his hand on the  _ beautiful  _ thump-thump of her heartbeat. Puppy is  _ all right. _

The dragon lets out a puff of air. ‘Of course she’s still alive. I’m not a  _ monster _ .’ He doesn’t pause to give Seungmin time to say something stupid and unhelpful like  _ “but you’re a dragon,” _ instead drawing back and peering down his nose at Seungmin. ‘So, knight,’ he says conversationally, tone strangely not unlike a page trying his best to avoid performing his task, ‘why are you in my forest?’

Seungmin glances around at the woods. There are lots of trees, definitely, but still- ‘This is a forest?’

The dragon sighs, curls of steam licking out of his mouth. Seungmin takes a small step back. The steam, following the general behaviour pattern for steam, is  _ hot _ , and Seungmin is boiling inside his armour. The leaves above the dragon’s head glisten with the stuff, condensing and dripping slowly down until the dragon is studded with dew. He doesn’t pay attention to this, instead pausing in his looming menacingly above Seungmin to say, dissatisfied, ‘“Why are you in my wood?” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.’

Seungmin has to agree. There is still an  _ s, _ so the hiss of the dragon’s voice is still there, and the slight, high-pitched whistling reminiscent of a kettle on the boil, but “wood” just doesn’t sound as magical as “forest”, and if you’re a dragon, then it follows that you’d want to sound as magical as possible, right? Edging back, Seungmin nods slightly. Maybe if he agrees with the dragon, the dragon will be so immensely happy at having his word choice validated that he won’t stop Seungmin from springing onto Puppy and cantering away as fast as her knobbly legs will take them?

The tip of the tail pokes at Seungmin. ‘Where do you think you’re going, little knight?’ The dragon’s voice lilts, his sing-songy tone helpfully increasing the terrifying nature of the question. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

Normally, Seungmin would definitely not let anyone get away with calling him “little knight,” especially when he’s  _ not  _ a squire and is, in fact, so very chivalrous that his arms are  _ recognised  _ by people he doesn’t even know. A dragon is not just anyone, however, and so Seungmin lets it slide, because he’s a bit too busy being scared out of his mind to take the dragon to task for getting his station wrong. Besides, “little” has only helped to remind Seungmin that the dragon is  _ massive, _ and could probably crush him without much effort at all.

‘Well?’ the dragon says, in a tone that leaves Seungmin’s absolutely certain that if he  _ had  _ eyebrows he’d be raising them. He prods Seungmin with his tail some more.

‘I didn’t come to fight you,’ Seungmin says quickly, shaking his head. Obviously, his shield might reduce his credibility a little bit, but just because his arms are  _ per dragon Argent and Gules countercharged, _ it doesn’t mean that he  _ wants  _ to kill dragons. It’s just a dragon on a shield! ‘You don’t need to kill me, because I didn’t come to fight you, so you really don’t need to fight me. I just came to look for my brother, I promise.’

The dragon makes a noise, then; not exactly a noise to show that he’s listening, and not exactly a sound that conveys something in between amusement and disbelief, but a noise that manages to do both of those things and still sound like nothing in particular. He breathes out, heavily, smoke rushing out of his open mouth and hanging heavy in the air behind him, his own personal cloud. His forked tongue slips out of his jaw, tasting the air, and Seungmin finds himself wondering if, compared to other humans, he looks particularly appetising. Maybe the dragon  _ likes  _ eating knights? Maybe smoking knights while still inside the armour tastes  _ nice. _ ‘All right, little knight,’ the dragon says. He doesn’t move, still looking down at Seungmin from high up, leaving Seungmin with a painful crick in his neck and his eyes smarting from the smoke, small tendrils sneaking their way into his helmet, trying to keep the dragon in his field of vision. ‘You just came to find your brother? Isn’t it a bit irresponsible to have lost him in the first place? I never lose  _ my  _ brother.’

Oh.  _ Oh. _ Is the dragon insinuating that it’s  _ Seungmin’s  _ fault that a Great Evil saw fit to steal Wonpil? Seungmin will  _ not  _ stand for this. Dragon or not, accusing people of not caring about their siblings is simply _ not the done thing. _ ‘I’d assume your brother is a lot easier to spot than mine,’ is what Seungmin chooses to mutter, because it  _ could  _ be taken as simply making conversation, and not the rude retort that Seungmin intends it to be, if one is particularly ignorant of what certain tones mean. Just in case, Seungmin graciously uses his rudest tone of voice. He wouldn’t want his true meaning to get lost in translation, after all. 

There’s something incredibly amused about the twist of the dragon’s neck, this time. He rears up, cracking open his wings, blood red and shot through with veins of gold. ‘If your brother is the knight with the white plume who was looking for the piano tree, I haven’t seen him at all. However, I think Morgan le Fay mentioned something about finally having company in her castle. You’ll know it when you see it, it’s a  _ tad  _ hard to miss.’ He flaps his wings once, twice, thrice, thrusting up into the air. ‘Find your brother, little knight, and then leave my forest,’ he calls down, the flaps of his wings and the rush of wind they cause buffeting Seungmin until he’s crouching on the ground. ‘You’ll need that,’ the dragon adds, and Seungmin notices a spoon on the ground. When he looks up, the dragon is gone.

Seungmin pockets the spoon. He moves to re-mount Puppy and finds himself just standing by her side for a few minutes, blinking.

* * *

Wonpil sighs. As much as he loves relaxing, it’s a bit hard to do so when the sofa you’re trying to relax on is, in fact, made of butter. The longer Wonpil rests on the butter sofa, the more curdled it feels. And Wonpil would know, considering how much time he’d spent in the milking parlour before starting his stint as a page. It’s also a bit hard to relax when really, he should be on a quest right now. Thankfully, Sungjin had suggested allowing time for unpleasant and unfortunate happenings in their plans, so he isn’t setting them back by any time. 

Still. There are more pleasant things to be kidnapped by than Morgan le Fay, especially considering that Wonpil seems to have misplaced his sword and armour. A bit inconvenient of him, if he’s being completely honest, but at least he’s alone in his dairy cell, so he doesn’t have to worry about fending off one of the boys who raises the hunting dogs. You’ll find Wonpil is a bit too fond of his nose to willingly put himself into a situation where it might get bitten off by feral dog-raising boys. (However, the lack of dog-boy doesn’t mean that Wonpil isn’t concerned about the whereabouts of his sword and armour; it’s just that he needs to escape the frustratingly slippery walls of his cell before he can get them back.)

Eventually, the sound of grunting breaks through Wonpil’s wallowing. Isn’t this just his luck? Morgan le Fay has probably kidnapped a dog-boy, as well, so that he has the  _ full  _ imprisoned-by-Morgan-le-Fay experience. Really, she shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble for little old him. Wonpil eyes the butter sofa beneath him. Glancing out at what little of the corridor he can see beyond his cell, Wonpil edges sideways until he’s crouching behind the sofa, hidden. He will, at least, if nothing else, have the element of surprise.

Strangely, as the footsteps come closer, the butter pools and bunches at Wonpil’s feet. It’s not trapping him, not really - it’s more as if the butter is trying to  _ run  _ from something. How strange. As far as Wonpil knows, butter isn’t intolerant to dog-boys. 

A dry cough echoes as best it can when the walls are made of something thick and sticky and viscous. ‘I can see your feet,’ a voice says. Wonpil has bickered with that voice many times. ‘You aren’t very good at hiding.’

‘Be quiet, brother,’ Wonpil mutters, standing up and dusting himself off as best he can when he’s dusting milk and cream off his hose. It is, essentially, the idea of the action that is important, and not the action itself. ‘I’d like to see where  _ you  _ would hide if you’d been kidnapped into a dairy castle and a dog-boy was coming to bite your nose off.’

‘I think perhaps you read too much,’ Seungmin ventures, his helpful suggestion rendered moot by the fact that they are both well aware that it is  _ Seungmin  _ who reads too much. ‘I highly doubt there will be a dog-boy here, since some of the others were going to go on a hunt right before you got yourself kidnapped by a Great Evil.’

‘Say it louder, I don’t think she heard you,’ Wonpil says under his breath, making his way to the butter bars. He would grip them dramatically, but butter takes  _ forever  _ to rinse off his hands.

Seungmin doesn’t grace him with a retort, instead pulling out a spoon. Yes, you heard Wonpil right. A spoon. Seungmin is carrying cutlery around with him. To Morgan le Fay’s castle. 

‘You do know you’re not supposed to eat her things, don’t you?’

Seungmin sighs, batting away Wonpil’s concerned hand when he reaches for the spoon. ‘It’s not for  _ eating  _ \- who eats butter by itself? A dragon gave it to me to rescue you.’

‘You met a dragon?’ Wonpil gawks. Seungmin is calmly waving his spoon in front of the bars. The butter melts away as the spoon nears it, letting Wonpil step out and into the corridor, which is made of bread. Say what you want about Morgan le Fay; she definitely knows how to place her rooms in the most strategic manner possible. Thankfully, the bread is cooked; Wonpil isn’t particularly keen on stepping on dough, and having his footsteps sink deeper and deeper as he moves forward.

‘I met a dragon,’ Seungmin confirms. ‘He was big and red. He did something strange to Puppy to “calm her down”. Where’s your armour?’

‘Around here somewhere, I think,’ Wonpil says, gesturing at the many ante-rooms lining the corridor. ‘I didn’t see where they put it.’

Seungmin holds the spoon straight out in front of him, waving it in different directions as if he expects it to guide them to Wonpil’s armour. Shaking his head, Wonpil starts peering into doorways. He discovers his armour in the fourth room, which is handily made of honey and beeswax. Wonpil says “handily”, but really, he means the exact opposite. 

‘Seungmin,’ he says, poking his head back out into the corridor. ‘Bring your spoon over here; I need it.’ Seungmin pads across the corridor, using his spoon to ease the sticky honey off the pile of Wonpil’s armour, sticking the spoon straight in and watching the honey shoot off and splatter on the walls, then helping him to put it on. Wonpil grabs his sword (or, perhaps it could be said that he slowly eases it out of the honey-floor it’s buried in, and leaves with a greater respect than ever for King Arthur, and the fact that he pulled his sword out of an  _ anvil) _ . He doesn’t sheath it, because there’s so much honey in his scabbard he doesn’t think it will ever come out. He’ll have to ask Hyunjin to make him a new one when they get back.

‘Come on,’ Seungmin says, tightening the straps of Wonpil’s pauldrons and smacking his shoulder. ‘Let’s go. Puppy’s tied up outside.’

They make their way outside, sticking to the walls and tiptoeing, sneaking as best they can. Thankfully, they make it outside without getting caught. They make their way over to where Seungmin has tied Puppy to a tree. Wonpil pats her neck while Seungmin mounts her. When he brings his gauntlet away, it’s coated with a thin, glittering red residue. The motes sparkle in the sunlight when Wonpil dusts his hands off. Wonpil hauls himself up behind Seungmin and holds tight as they canter away.

* * *

Seungmin walks through the marketplace. A few trading caravans have stopped in their town, on their way back home, to sell everything they couldn’t sell Further South, so the marketplace is bustling, busier than it normally is. He’s looking for leather - Jisung has been needling him to train a hawk, so they can practice their falconry together, and if he’s going to do that, then Seungmin needs leather to make jesses. He’s already found some very nice vellum-bound volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with gilded lettering; and some gilt for inking, for all the letters he has to write (he’s still waiting for his mother’s latest letter from Spain, where she’s learning as much as she can possibly stuff into the crevices of her brain).

Seungmin spots Chan standing by a stall laden with wooden carvings. ‘Look,’ he says, glancing up as Seungmin sidles up to him. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ He’s pointing at a small wooden panel, with prancing cats dancing up and down in lines, picked out in gilt and black ink. ‘I think it’s about the right size for that cupboard Minho is building, don’t you?’

Seungmin squints at it. ‘Yes,’ he decides. It does seem to be around the same size as Minho’s cupboard-in-progress. ‘Does he not have a door for it yet?’

‘No,’ Chan says, picking up the panel and asking the stall’s owner how much it costs. ‘He’ll love this, though.’ Chan thanks the stall’s owner and hoists the panel up, handing over his payment. ‘I think I’ll take this home now, Minnie. Will you still be here later?’

‘Probably,’ Seungmin murmurs. He’s just spotted a small wooden carving; not as beautiful as the others, more a child’s practice than anything else, really, but, as he picks it up and turns it over in his fingers, he finds himself strangely enamoured with it. ‘I still have to visit Hyunjin’s forge, you know. I’ve got to check if he’s made any progress on Wonpil’s new scabbard.’

‘Right,’ Chan says. ‘I still don’t quite understand how he managed to fill his old scabbard with  _ honey.’ _

Seungmin shrugs. ‘It’s the price of being captured by a Great Evil, I suppose. Didn’t Sir BamBam’s sword  _ splinter  _ when he tried to get you away from that Great Evil you ran into in the South?’

Chan pouts. ‘Don’t be unpleasant, Minnie. It wasn’t a Great Evil, it was  _ friendly.  _ BamBam just got scared because it was very big. I was making  _ friends; _ I didn’t need to be got away from anything.’

‘If you say so, Chan.’ Chan  _ does  _ have a propensity for making friends with pretty much any living, breathing creature, Seungmin thinks - and even some that  _ aren’t  _ living, let alone breathing. Some of Chan’s friends  _ have  _ been terrifying, but they’ve all been friendly, too. Chan waves goodbye and starts making his way back to the castle, wooden panel under his arm. Seungmin waves him off, then looks at the little carving still in his hand. It’s a crude dragon, rearing up and flaring its wings. It’s picked out in blue and silver. Seungmin likes the colours, although he can’t help but feel there is a better combination out there, somewhere. There’s something about the sharpness of its teeth, as Seungmin runs his thumb along the sharp little things, something that has him pulling out his money. Seungmin tucks the little dragon into his pocket, strangely satisfied, and continues on his way.

There is a stall selling daggers, and what is more, it’s been set up right next to Hyunjin’s forge. Seungmin eyes it exasperatedly. Perhaps the stall-holder had  _ meant  _ to slight Hyunjin. Maybe Seungmin should accidentally bump into the stall on his way past. Seungmin is considering how best to change his path when  _ something  _ glimmers in the corner of his eye. The dagger stall drops out of his mind completely. He turns around to get a better look at the shiny, glimmering thing. Casting his gaze about wildly, Seungmin is about to despair of  _ ever  _ seeing whatever it was, when the light hits something, and  _ oh. _ Oh. There is someone in the crowd, and when the light hits his eyes, they shine  _ golden. _ Seungmin sucks in a breath. The sight is so pretty; the stranger seems to be  _ glowing  _ wherever the light touches him, sunlight dancing across the highs and lows of his face and making him  _ shine. _ The stranger looks up, in this moment, as if he can feel Seungmin’s eyes on him. His gaze meets Seungmin’s, curiously, and then he smiles a lazy smile, a smile dripping with teeth sharper than any other person Seungmin has ever met. Seungmin blinks. 

When he opens his eyes, the stranger is gone.

There is something strange - Seungmin can’t quite put a word to it - but something about the stranger echoes inside him. The whole thing feels eerily familiar. 

* * *

Hyunjin doesn’t look up as someone enters his forge and cuts across the room, stopping right in front of him. He hammers the iron flat, then dunks it in a bucket of water to cool it off. Only then does he look up.

‘There’s a stall outside stealing your customers,’ Seungmin says, pouting. He turns to glare at the door.

Hyunjin puts his tongs down. ‘That’s all right,’ he laughs. ‘I’m a blacksmith, not a bladesmith. I can’t make swords anyway. I had to travel to the next town over to learn how to make a scabbard for your brother, don’t you remember?’

Seungmin frowns. ‘Weren’t you only gone for three days? It takes five to even get there.’

Hyunjin shrugs. ‘I had a fast mount,’ he says, glancing at Changbin, who’s been standing in the corner, waiting for Hyunjin to be done with the iron. He raises an eyebrow and mouths  _ mount? _ Hyunjin giggles. Changbin shakes his head and sticks his tongue out.

‘Fair enough,’ Seungmin says. Hyunjin doesn’t understand how he can be so utterly oblivious to Changbin, who is in fact only five paces behind him, but the mind works in mysterious ways. Seungmin starts to speak, but Hyunjin holds up a finger, and he pauses. Hyunjin pulls the iron out of the bucket and tosses it into the forge again, to heat up.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you know,’ Seungmin starts, handing Hyunjin his hammer when he gestures at it, ‘I think I saw someone earlier with golden eyes.’

Hyunjin jerks his chin at Changbin, still in the corner. He continues hammering his plate. ‘Like that fellow over there?’

Seungmin turns around to examine him. ‘Almost,’ is what he eventually settles on. ‘Almost.’ Then he steps over to Changbin. ‘I’m Sir Seungmin,’ he says, holding out his hand.

‘Changbin,’ Changbin says, taking Seungmin’s hand and shaking it. He locks eyes with Hyunjin, who’s peering at them from his corner. His eyes gleam silver in the light, all the metal in the room reflecting off him, dousing him in twinkles of light.

‘I don’t think I’ve met you before,’ Seungmin says. ‘Are you a traveller?’

‘Of sorts,’ Changbin smiles gently. ‘I live in the woods. I like to visit the forge, though. Hyunjin makes so many pretty things.’

‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Seungmin says, proudly. ‘I think he’s the best blacksmith I’ve ever known.’ (Hyunjin knows for a fact that he’s the  _ only  _ blacksmith Seungmin has ever known, but he’ll take the sentiment for what it is - a compliment.) ‘But wait - did you say you lived in the woods?’

Changbin nods.

‘I thought the woods belonged to the dragon,’ Seungmin muses, puzzled. ‘I thought he didn’t like other people in there?’

Changbin smiles again, a little sharper, but just as soft. ‘There are exceptions,’ he offers, edging around Seungmin to Hyunjin’s corner when he beckons. ‘I don’t trouble him, he doesn’t trouble me. Are you the knight who lost his brother?’

Hyunjin reaches for Changbin’s arm, huffing out a chuckle at his extremely unsubtle changing of the subject. He moulds the iron around Changbin’s arm, twisting the metal deftly.

Bristling, Seungmin turns around. ‘I didn’t  _ lose  _ my-  _ Hyunjin.’  _ Seungmin gapes at him, gesturing wildly with his arm. Hyunjin flings his bucket of water over Changbin’s arm. ‘Are you- that’s his- Hyunjin, that’s his  _ arm; _ you can’t put hot metal on it!’

‘He’s fine,’ Hyunjin says, the ghost of a smile curling the edges of his mouth as he pulls his thick leather gloves off. He has a wide and varied clientele, not that any of his friends have noticed. A little hot metal has never hurt Changbin. ‘He’s fine, aren’t you, Changbin?’

‘That I am,’ Changbin supplies helpfully, patting Seungmin’s arm. Sadly, this doesn’t do much to put Seungmin’s concerns to rest. ‘It doesn’t hurt a bit. As I said, Hyunjin makes lots of pretty things. It’s just an armband, look.’ He holds his arm out for Seungmin to see.

‘It is pretty,’ Seungmin allows, dubiously. ‘And it didn’t burn you?’

‘Not at all.’ Changbin lets some smoke curl out of his mouth. Hyunjin suppresses a giggle, making a face at Changbin when he turns to give him a satisfied smile. Seungmin doesn’t mention the smoke. He’s blinking rather rapidly. Poor thing. Hyunjin will probably have to give him some calming brandy once Changbin’s left.

‘I see,’ Seungmin mumbles, tone so totally devoid of emotion that everyone in the room is immediately certain that he does not, actually, see.

‘I should leave now,’ Changbin says, glancing outside. ‘I’ll be late home if I stay any longer. It was nice to meet you, Seungmin.’

‘And you, too,’ Seungmin replies, shaking Changbin’s hand again.

Hyunjin hands Changbin a basket. ‘For you and Jeongin,’ he whispers, so Seungmin can’t hear them. He knows Changbin doesn’t always have time to catch something for dinner on his way back. Changbin mumbles his thanks and grips Hyunjin’s hand, shaking it enthusiastically.

‘Again, thank you so much, Hyunjin. Take care.’ With that, he ducks outside. Hyunjin turns back to Seungmin, who’s regarding him with so much confusion that Hyunjin steps out from behind his forge and gently leads Seungmin to a chair.

Hyunjin hands him some brandy, hiding his smile. Poor Seungmin, completely and utterly bemused. ‘Thanks,’ Seungmin mumbles, taking the mug and staring into its depths. ‘I take it Changbin is similar to some of Chan’s bigger friends?’

‘He’s exactly that, Minnie,’ Hyunjin says, patting Seungmin’s shoulder sympathetically. It is, after all, a big revelation. Seungmin appears to be taking it very well, if his quiet question of if it really didn’t hurt Changbin, and his small, relieved nod after Hyunjin’s affirmation says anything about it.

‘In that case,’ Seungmin says, sipping his brandy. ‘You do have interesting clients.’

Hyunjin sits down next to Seungmin, grinning. ‘That I do,’ he agrees, taking the brandy from Seungmin and taking a swig. ‘So what did you run into in the woods? I never heard the full story.’ He’s suspected, though. There’s a slight whiff around Seungmin, a slight, burned wood kind of smell - nowhere near as blazing and ashy as Hyunjin’s own cloud, but then, Seungmin hadn’t stayed for long, according to Jeongin.

Seungmin pulls something small and wooden out of his pocket. Resting his head on Hyunjin’s shoulder, he starts to speak.

* * *

_ Thud. Thud. Thud.  _ The thudding of hooves fills Seungmin’s ears, flooding into his every thought, drowning him in the noise. He grasps at the branch of Puppy’s heavy breathing, pulling himself out of the thudding to focus on her huffs. Thankfully, he’d fed her before he and Jisung had set off, but still, at this pace she’ll be worn out soon. Seungmin rises up in his stirrups, craning his neck to look around. He can see the woods out of the corner of his eye: this is far closer to the woods than he has been since meeting the dragon. He hasn’t been able to get the fact that Changbin somehow  _ lives in there, _ with dragons and Morgan le Fay and who knows what else, out of his head.

Still. Seungmin has no choice today, what with him and Jisung needing to visit the faery in their house. “House” is a loose term, maybe - perhaps “specific ray of sunlight that they will materialise in at noon and at noon only, specifically at the height of spring” is a better way to describe it, but Seungmin digresses. In any case, it was of the utmost importance that he and Jisung visit the faery, and so Seungmin had, grudgingly, ventured close to the forest.

Was it worth it? Seungmin has no idea.  _ He  _ has the decoy bag - it’s Jisung who is carrying the real thing away from their pursuers, and they hadn’t been able to open the bag to see what it was that the faery had given them before they’d had to run. The thing about the King of England calling a universal quest to find a magic rock, and offering a massive reward to whoever finds it, without actually bothering to  _ describe  _ the rock, is that no one is sure whether their rock is the right one. This leads to rogue knights operating - illegally - out of the bounds of chivalry chasing other knights down, just in case they were the ones lucky enough to find the rock. Hence Seungmin and Jisung venturing out together, and preparing a decoy.

If Seungmin is going to take any experience to the monks to write down in the history books, it certainly won’t be this one. Frankly, he found last week’s chase much more enjoyable - Sir Vernon and some of his friends had been the ones chasing them then, but Seungmin and Jisung are friends with Vernon. Felix had shown up with a magical (but not the one they were looking for) rock, and then they’d all stopped for a picnic, during which Felix and Vernon had almost perished from the extent of their laughter.

Oh well, you can’t have it all, Seungmin supposes. His pursuers’ horses are getting closer, and he certainly won’t lose them on open ground like this. Sucking in a breath and burying it in his stomach, Seungmin nudges Puppy into the woods. He’ll lose them in here, and then come out as soon as he can. He has the spoon with him, so hopefully no Great Evils will approach him.

His pursuers manage to stay on his tail. While weaving between trees, Seungmin damns them to all oblivion. He has to go deeper and deeper into the woods, but by some devilry he doesn’t lose a single one of those chasing him. He can only hope that this means Jisung - and their possibly magic rock - is safe, and unpursued. Puppy canters into a clearing of sorts, pulling up short in front of a cave. Seungmin casts around wildly. He could go back into the trees, but- maybe a cave is exactly what he needs. He can dash in, pretend to stash the bag in a crevice somewhere, then fight them off one by one until they’re defeated. The cave is bright, too; illuminated in a way that suggests another opening. If Seungmin is overwhelmed, he can just slip out again.

Mind thus made up, Seungmin pulls on Puppy’s reins and dashes into the cave’s mouth, the echoes of his pursuers snatching at his back. He dashes in, and is immediately blinded. From the way Puppy pulls up short, so is she. Seungmin shakes his head, blinking to clear his vision. He pulls his helmet off - he almost drops it. Surrounding him are mounds and  _ mounds  _ of gold, piles and piles of it, reaching up to the very top of the cave. The cave isn’t bright because there’s another opening - it’s bright, it shines, because it’s  _ filled  _ with  _ gold. _ Seungmin chokes his gasp back, scared that if he makes a noise too loud, he’ll bring the piles toppling down on top of him. The gold fills his mind, driving out everything, turning his thoughts molten gold until he can’t think.

His gasp must have been louder than he thought, though, because the pile in front of him stirs. Seungmin is rooted to the spot, terrified that he might have caused a glittering avalanche - he’d wanted to visit the actual Alps, perhaps experience an  _ actual  _ avalanche, if he was particularly unlucky - not  _ this! _

The pile stirs some more, chalices and coins and chains from the top falling off, rolling across the floor. Across from him, something moves, flickers open, bright, and Seungmin suddenly becomes aware of a pair of massive eyes staring straight at him. He can see himself reflected in their great, golden depths; and then the pile moves some more, shifting and pelting down to hit the floor, falling off something, rolling off a massive creature in waves, and Seungmin’s vision is filled with  _ dragon. _

The dragon - the same dragon from before, the one in whose woods  _ Seungmin is currently trespassing, _ and Seungmin’s heart drops to his feet - blinks, and in the space of the filmy eyelid coming down once, Seungmin wonders if he should just wheel Puppy around and take his chances with the rogue knights. Then he changes his mind, because if the dragon’s eyelid is filmy, that means he has a second eyelid, like a bird, and  _ that  _ means that  _ he can still see Seungmin. _

Finally, the dragon steps closer, curling his neck down to peer at Seungmin. ‘Little knight,’ he says, and if Seungmin wasn’t frozen, rooted to the spot, unable to move, perhaps he’d notice the dragon’s tail curling around to block the cave’s mouth. ‘Are you here to steal from me?’

Thankfully, the dragon sounds more amused than anything else. Seungmin can only hope that it stays this way, but the dragon is so  _ huge  _ \- he must have _ so many _ feelings swirling around inside him - there can’t be enough amusement to  _ fill  _ him; and who knows what emotion might swirl to the top next? If  _ Seungmin  _ can feel so much and so vividly, then he can’t even imagine how much the dragon, massive as he is, can feel.

The dragon flicks Seungmin with the tip of his tail. ‘Well?’

‘No,’ Seungmin stutters out, twitching Puppy’s reins nervously. ‘I’m just running from-’ He stops, because the other knights are gathered at the mouth of the cave, although they don’t seem to be paying attention to Seungmin any more. They seem to be a bit too busy almost falling off their horses and staring at the dragon.

‘Oh, them?’ the dragon asks. ‘Bit rude of them to crowd round my doorway, if you ask me.’ Non sequitur having been said, he proceeds to crack his tail at them, not unlike a whip. The knights scatter (although their leader does pause to give Seungmin a quick glare before scarpering, which is only fair).

Seungmin hopes that he’d given Jisung enough of a head start that he’s home by now; or, at least, safe and hidden.

With that out of the way, he turns back to the all-important business of trying to not lose his mind completely to fear. Strangely, Puppy isn’t reacting at all to the presence of the dragon - whenever she and Seungmin happen upon a grass snake, she invariably rears, but here, she’s calm and quiet, as if the dragon isn’t there at all. Perhaps his “calming” thing is still going on. The air  _ is  _ a smidge red, but maybe that’s just all the gold reflecting off the dragon’s red scales.

‘So,’ the dragon says, sitting down and wrapping his tail around his legs in exactly the same way Minho’s cats do. ‘Did you find your brother?’

‘Yes,’ Seungmin says quietly. ‘I did. Thank you for the spoon.’

The dragon smiles. ‘I thought it would be useful,’ he purrs, sharp teeth melting out of his smile. Seungmin  _ must  _ have seen this somewhere else; it’s swimming in the back of his mind, this exact smile, the gold sparkling all around; some part of it feels so distinctly _ not new _ to Seungmin. But he doesn’t remember the dragon smiling the only other time he’d met him, so there’s no  _ reason  _ for it to echo in Seungmin’s head. ‘You can tie your horse over there,’ he adds, flicking a wing in the direction of what seems to be a tree carved entirely out of gold; with hammered golden leaves, gold wire branches and roots, rubies for flowers. It is so glorious, and so golden, and Seungmin can’t quite bring himself to approach it, let alone  _ tie his horse to it. _

‘Is that... real?’ Seungmin asks. Yes, he’s surrounded by gold on all sides, practically drowning in it at this point, but a gold  _ tree? _ It seems impossible.

‘Is it real?’ the dragon asks. He sounds slightly miffed, and Seungmin curses himself. Of  _ course  _ he’d manage to offend the dragon; is his armour going to join the piles of shiny things now? Bones aren’t shiny, and as Seungmin casts his gaze around the cave, he can’t spot any. That might just mean the dragon is good at tidying up, though. _ ‘Of course _ it’s real,’ the dragon growls, the rumbling of his voice echoing through the cave, bouncing off the cavernous walls, shaking Seungmin and Puppy a little where they stand, reverberating inside Seungmin, rumbling in his insides. ‘I only have real shiny things here.’ Something about the dragon’s tone makes it seem like he’s extremely offended that Seungmin would dare to think he would have anything  _ non-shiny. _ What a massive offense on Seungmin’s part. He should have paid more attention when learning. Obviously, dragons only have  _ real  _ shiny things in their caves. The dragon leans down, slicing a branch off with the tip of one massive claw. ‘Look how real it is,’ he says, curling his tail around Seungmin’s middle and lifting him off Puppy. Seungmin flails and grabs at the dragon’s tail, clinging tight.

‘Put me down, put me  _ down, why are you carrying me- _ ’

‘Hush, little knight,’ the dragon huffs, settling Seungmin down on the floor, next to the branch. To his credit, he is exceedingly gentle. Seungmin will realise this later, in bed, when he’s lying awake and staring at the ceiling, trying to get the whole insane encounter out of his head. Right now he’s a bit preoccupied with not losing his mind. ‘I’m not going to  _ kill  _ you.’

‘Well, how would  _ I _ know?’ Seungmin mutters, pushing the coils of the dragon’s tail off him and stepping back. The dragon probably hears him, from the exasperated huff Seungmin can hear, but Seungmin elects to studiously ignore it. Now that he’s here, he may as well look at the branch. Seungmin crouches down to observe the branch.

He almost topples over. ‘See?’ the dragon says proudly. He probably doesn’t mean to be menacing, but you can only avoid so much when every word you utter has a hissing sibilance underlying it. Seungmin does see. Seungmin sees that the branch mimics an  _ actual tree branch _ from an  _ actual, living tree _ in every way apart from its colour. The leaves are soft, just like actual leaves. The bark scratches the back of his hand when he pulls off his gauntlet to trace its length, just like actual bark. Seungmin sucks in a breath.

He makes his way over to the tree; leans against it, breathes in the fresh woody smell that  _ isn’t coming from outside. _ Oh. Seungmin sinks down and pulls his gauntlet back on, burying his head in his knees. The golden tree is a  _ real tree.  _ When he tilts his head back and looks up at the ruby flowers, he can  _ smell  _ their fragrance. Seungmin sucks in another breath. ‘Your tree is real,’ he says, voice small and  _ awed. _ ‘Your tree is _ real.’ _

The dragon crouches down, presumably trying to remain at Seungmin’s eye level. ‘It is,’ he says, pleased. ‘You can have this.’ He nudges the branch towards Seungmin.

‘Oh,’ Seungmin says faintly. He trails his gauntleted fingers through the pretty, soft leaves. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ the dragon says. ‘But next time you come, try not to bring incensed knights to my door.’

‘All right,’ Seungmin agrees. It’s only later, at home, staring at the golden branch on his table, that Seungmin realises that the dragon had said that there would be a “next time”.

* * *

Jisung gets left behind barely half an hour into the hunt. He wishes he could say that he's surprised, but really, sometimes your goshawk will decide that she'd much rather sit in a tree and stare vaguely off into the distance, and there's nothing you can really do about it other than wait. Squirrel, his goshawk, likes to do this roughly twenty to thirty minutes into the hunt, which is always hours before they manage to catch a scent, anyway. Jisung doesn't mind really, not deep down: he's far too squeamish to  _ want  _ to stay with a hunt all the way through, and have to look at the bigger and bloodier animals that the hounds kill. Goshawks don't kill messily, which is one of the reasons Jisung loves Squirrel so much. Another reason is that she likes to sit on his shoulder as he walks around, and that makes him look  _ cool. _

Still, Jisung's quiet relief whenever Squirrel decides that she's had enough of the hunt doesn't mean that he finds standing under a tree for hours, waiting for her to be ready to go home, a fun way to spend his time; a fact made evident by the deep, world-weary sigh he lets out as soon as Felix comes into view, stepping round a large tree.

'Sungie,' Felix says, surprised. 'I didn't think I'd catch up to you so soon.' He stops and places the basket he's carrying down for a while, bending down and resting his hands on his knees. 'You won't believe how  _ heavy  _ that thing is.'

'I started out late today,' Jisung says, turning around so that he can keep Squirrel's tree in sight while making his way towards Felix. 'And you'll  _ never  _ guess who decided to visit dreamland earlier into the hunt than she  _ ever  _ has before.' Jisung shoots a glare at where Squirrel has apparently decided to  _ roost  _ in the tree. He blows her a kiss immediately after because he feels guilty.

An unfortunate side effect of walking backwards is that Jisung, funnily enough, doesn't have eyes in the back of his head, meaning that he walks slap-bang into Felix. 'Sungie,' Felix sighs, steadying Jisung. Jisung rests his hands on top of Felix's where they wrap around his waist. Thankfully the hunt doesn't require full armour, or even any armour unless you're a Coward, so Jisung doesn't have to pull his helmet off as he lifts Felix's hand up to his mouth, not taking his eyes off Squirrel, and drops a kiss on the back of Felix's hand.

Jisung wraps his hand around the basket and makes his way back to the tree, Felix trailing after him.

'This is earlier than I thought it would be,' Felix says, opening the basket and pulling out a bundle of cloth, 'but I suppose we can eat now.' He sits at the base of the tree, angled so that Squirrel's branch is in his field of view, and pats the ground next to him.

'Yay,' Jisung mumbles, sitting down next to Felix and immediately resting his head on Felix's shoulder. He burrows deeper into Felix's side, turning so that he can press his face into Felix's shoulder and block out the light.

'You can't sleep there, Sungie,' Felix says, amused, but he drops a quick kiss on the crown of Jisung's head anyway.

'But _ Lix,' _ Jisung groans, sitting up properly and reaching for the bundle. Felix passes it to him and presses closer so that their sides are touching from their shoulders to their toes. Jisung unties the bundle, breathing in the cloud of steam that puffs out, heavy with the scents of spices and the richness of pastry. 'Cornish pasties?' he asks.

'Nope,' Felix grins, pulling out a flaky pastry as long as Jisung's hand, shaped like a triangle, with two equal sides and one long side. 'I finally used that recipe Seungmin's mother sent me. It's lamb mince with masala powder.'

'Ooh,' Jisung says, and he doesn't waste another second, grabbing a puff and digging in. 

Jisung and Squirrel really didn't get very far from the town, which is why, as he and Felix move on to their third puff each (they taste  _ so good _ ), they're given a perfect view of Seungmin slowly making his way back through the gates, at a pace that nowhere near resembles the rapid canter he set off at yesterday. In fact, Jisung hasn’t seen Seungmin ride this fast since he and Jisung had gone to see that faery, and had been ambushed (the rock was, sadly, not the magic rock they were looking for), and it’s been a few weeks since then.

'I wonder where he keeps going off to,' Felix mumbles, brushing crumbs off Jisung's lap and resting his head on Jisung's thigh. He turns his head so, cheek pressed against Jisung's thigh, he can still see Squirrel on her branch. 

'I don't know,' Jisung says, dusting off his hands and brushing crumbs away from the corner of Felix's mouth. 'He hasn't trained with us in days, has he?'

'No,' Felix says, yawning. He grabs Jisung's hand and holds it to his chest, snuggling closer to Jisung and letting his eyes slip closed. 'I'm going to have a nap, wake me up when Squirrel is ready to go.'

'All right, darling,' Jisung smiles, pressing a quick kiss to Felix's cheek. 'Sweet dreams.'

'Let's take Seungmin to the lake,' Felix mumbles, eyes still closed as he burrows closer to Jisung. 'Make a day of it. Talk to him.'

'That's a good plan,' Jisung hums, and he smiles more when Felix's breathing evens out. Squirrel finally decides to come down, landing on one of the tree's upturned roots. Jisung cracks one of the puffs open for her so that she can eat the mince, eating the pastry himself. He rests his hand in Felix's hair and turns his gaze back to Seungmin. They'll definitely have to talk tomorrow.

* * *

Seungmin is confused. Why? Seungmin is confused because of the dragon. Except he knows the dragon’s name now - the dragon’s name is  _ Jeongin, _ and Seungmin knows this because after he’d dashed into the dragon’s cave to hide from the rogue knights, he  _ hasn’t stopped running into the dragon. _

First, he’d had to venture into the forest to collect some herbs for Felix. Seungmin had worried, but then he’d remembered that the dragon had said “next time”, so hopefully he wouldn’t mind Seungmin entering his forest again.

And so, Seungmin had found himself trudging through the forest, stopping at the base of what felt like _ every single tree _ to search for fennel, and wishing he could have been tasked with searching for dandelions instead, like Chan. Sadly, Felix has a habit of giving Chan the easiest foraging tasks - not that Seungmin can fault him, when he  _ also  _ wants to give Chan the easiest possible task, because if the world doesn’t hand itself to Chan on a silver platter then they are going to have a  _ conversation. _ Still, Seungmin had been staring at leaves and bushes and leafy bushes for so long that he felt a fennel could look him in the face, wearing a jingling jester hat and carrying a sign, and still he would not recognise it for what it was.

He’d probably be there to this day, staring at the ground unseeingly, if he hadn’t been shaken out of his stupor by a  _ presence  _ behind him. Well, a presence, and all the little things that come with it. Thankfully, Seungmin wasn’t wearing his armour, so the sudden increase in temperature didn’t cause him to vividly imagine getting lost at the South Pole, and maybe freezing a little bit. The heat also wasn’t as oppressive as it had been in the cave, perhaps because of the open air.

‘Who are you?’ the dragon had asked, twisting around to appear in Seungmin’s field of view. ‘Why are you in my forest?’

Seungmin had sighed, loudly and with feeling. Closing his eyes to the smarting smoke tumbling out of the dragon’s mouth, he’d muttered, ‘I’m here for some fennel, except I have no idea what fennel looks like.’

‘Oh,’ the dragon had said, smiling, sitting back on his haunches to peer at Seungmin. The smoke stopped, dispersed, and Seungmin could see the sun again, right on top of the dragon, his head eclipsing it, the golden rays of light soaking into his red scales until they  _ sparkled. _ ‘You should have said, little knight. I was going to chase you out. Where’s your horse?’

‘Are you saying you only recognise Puppy?’ Seungmin raised an eyebrow. ‘Charmed, I’m sure. It’s nice to know that you only pay attention to my horse.’ The bushes at his feet remained unknowable; unnamed.

‘You’re twisting my words,’ the dragon said, tone dripping with something that sounded a lot like a pout. He twisted his neck helpfully, into a figure eight, to emphasise his point. ‘You look different without armour. I needed your voice to recognise you.’

Seungmin shrugged. ‘I suppose that’s fair.’ He spread his arms, wiggling his fingers. ‘Well. This is what I look like without armour. Kindly don’t mistake me for someone else and eat me.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ the dragon said, settling down on all fours. The heat rolled off him in waves. Seungmin eyed the plants; they didn’t  _ seem  _ to be wilting from the heat, so perhaps it was all right.

‘And what do  _ you  _ look like without armour?’ Seungmin had asked, because he is, if nothing else, an enthusiast of keeping conversations going no matter what.

The dragon blinked at him, clearly trying to find an answer. Eventually, he settled on, ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’ Then he nosed at Seungmin’s chest, pushing him back against the tree. Seungmin stumbled, his breath stolen from him, and batted the dragon’s jaws away. Interestingly, he didn’t burn his hands doing it. ‘Did you say you were looking for fennel, little knight?’

‘Yes,’ Seungmin said, clutching at the branches behind him for support when the dragon drew away. ‘But I’ve forgotten what it looks like.’

‘That’s a tad inconvenient,’ the dragon mused. Seungmin had to concede that he was right, not that he’d taken much convincing. ‘Over there,’ the dragon had added, digging a claw into the soil across from Seungmin and drawing a circle around some plants. ‘This is fennel. Will it be enough?’

‘Yes,’ Seungmin murmured, crouching down to look at the fennel. He pulled out his bag and started picking the fennel. ‘Thank you.’

He got a pleased rumble in response, and before he was done, the clearing was cold again.

After that, he’d raced home, given Felix his fennel, and asked if he needed anything else from the forest. Felix had said no, so Seungmin stayed at home for two more days. Then he remembered that Wonpil had been looking for the piano tree. And so he had set off, marching up to the woods with purpose.

It took him approximately two hours to get lost, and it took the dragon approximately two and a half hours to find him.

‘Must you  _ trudge?’ _ the dragon grumbled, alighting behind him. A slight rumble in the air followed his words like a slow but faithful echo. ‘You walk so _ loudly. _ Some of us are trying to have a nap.’

‘I’m lost,’ Seungmin said simply. He turned around to face the dragon, crossing his arms. ‘It’s your fault, really; you’ve distracted me and now I’m lost.’

‘Is that so?’ the dragon asked tiredly. He yawned, jaw stretching wide, and Seungmin was suddenly  _ incredibly  _ aware of the dragon’s teeth, his sharp, sharp,  _ sharp  _ teeth, teeth that caught the light and shone. Seungmin swallowed the lump that introduced itself to his throat. ‘So where are you trying to get, little knight?’

‘The piano tree,’ Seungmin answered.

The dragon shut his jaw with a snap, staring at Seungmin. ‘The piano tree? But your brother and his friends already found it yesterday.’

‘Oh.’ Seungmin fiddled with the hem of his tunic. ‘Did they really?’

‘Yes,’ the dragon said, and the sun hit the side of his head, and the gold in his eyes melted, and his eyes were  _ wide _ when he looked at Seungmin _. _ ‘In fact,’ he added, cocking his head, ‘I think they’re just leaving now.’

‘Can you  _ hear  _ them?’

The dragon chuckled. ‘No. But it’s my piano tree. I can feel it.’

‘Oh.’ Seungmin kicked at a pebble. That’s… interesting. Seungmin had thought that perhaps the dragon’s hearing was just very good, considering the fact that apparently Seungmin had been walking loudly enough to wake him. It seems, Seungmin thinks, remembering that it is  _ the dragon’s _ forest that he’s in, it seems that the dragon can just feel happenings in his places.

‘Tell you what, little knight.’ Seungmin looked up. The dragon swished his tail in the air, accidentally stripping a few trees of their leaves. ‘Do you still want to see the piano tree? I can take you there now. I don’t think I’ll fall asleep again today, anyway.’

_ ‘Really?’ _

‘Why not? You keep trespassing in my forest, anyway.’ The dragon crouched, eyeing Seungmin up and down. 

‘You never ran me out,’ Seungmin pointed out reasonably. ‘And you did say “next time”.’

‘I suppose I did,’ the dragon admitted, before wrapping his tail around Seungmin’s middle. Before Seungmin had time to do more than think,  _ wait, no!, _ three quick flaps of the dragon’s wings had them thrusting up into the air. Up in the air, Seungmin’s world  _ tilted,  _ great big blue sky all around him, wide and big and bright, with the red of the dragon shining brightest, and suddenly he was passed from the dragon’s tail to his front claws, and the world righted. As the dragon curled his claws around Seungmin, he felt the sudden loss of the winds tugging at him, freezing him and tearing all moisture away from him. Inside the huddle of the dragon’s claws, it was warm, and Seungmin could breathe without the air being whipped away from him. 

Shakily, he stood up and made his way to the edge of the dragon’s cupped claws, trailing his hands along the dragon’s scales to keep himself upright. Careful on the sharp edges of the dragon’s claws, Seungmin tiptoed, looking out at the vast expanse of  _ sky  _ visible. There were geese, in the corner of his vision, flapping in their v-formation, calling to each other; strange, haunting calls that Seungmin couldn’t understand. Their grey bodies were beautiful. Further beyond, Seungmin could just make out the outline of mountains; grey shadows, pencil graphite that smudged the soft white of the clouds like the note-paper of a messy child. And below them - below them, a  _ sea  _ of leafy green tree-tops, rustling in the wind and rolling like waves, rushing and rushing until Seungmin, who had never undertaken a sea voyage, felt quite sea-sick. Queasily, he sunk to his knees. The view all around him was so big, so massive, so  _ vast; _ it pressed in on his head, squashing him under his magnitude.

When he next opened his eyes, he was on the ground again; on soft, springy green grass that lay  _ flat; _ and the dragon was crouched in front of him, eyes wide with concern. ‘I forgot that it can be a lot,’ he said apologetically. His tail wasn’t flicking agitatedly, and it was then that Seungmin realised that the log propping him up was in fact  _ not  _ a log, but the dragon’s tail. He groaned and lay down. The tail was better as a pillow than a propper-upper, anyway.

The dragon’s face blotted out all the light. ‘I’m fine,’ Seungmin protested, batting at the dragon’s muzzle but sadly not hitting it. ‘Stop blocking my light.’

‘If you say so.’ The dragon sat back on his haunches, giving Seungmin some space. The concern didn’t leave his tone. Eventually, his head stopped pounding and Seungmin sat up. ‘Here,’ the dragon mumbled, nudging some leaves towards Seungmin. He didn’t recognise any of them (but there’s a reason that Felix is their designated healer, and not him). ‘They’ll help with your head, little knight.’

Seungmin took the leaves. They had a slightly purple tint, a waxy sheen. He popped them into his mouth with an alacrity that should have been alarming. Luckily, they worked. Seungmin pushed himself up, head wonderfully clear, and frowned at the dragon. ‘Stop looking so distressed,’ he snapped, patting the dragon’s leg (or the part of it that he could reach). ‘I’m fine - more than fine, after those leaves. You don’t need to be worried.’

‘I’m sorry about your head,’ the dragon persisted, nosing at Seungmin’s side. ‘Are you really all right?’

_ ‘Yes,’ _ Seungmin sighed. ‘You’re a dragon, not a hen, stop fussing.’

Satisfied, the dragon sat back. ‘There’s not really much difference, if you think about it,’ he mused.

Seungmin didn’t think about it, because, as the dragon shifted, he caught sight of the piano tree.

The piano tree, being a piano tree, was so incredibly magnificent that words could never do it justice. Not Seungmin’s internal monologue, and certainly not any words  _ I _ could come up with, so I won’t try. It will suffice to say that, when Seungmin left the piano tree, carried by the dragon back to the edge of the forest, he was happier than he had ever been before.

After the piano tree, he hadn’t even bothered to come up with a decent excuse. After staying in bed for one day, just to make sure he was  _ fully  _ all right (although he was telling the truth when he’d said that the dragon’s leaves had made him feel  _ more  _ than all right), he got up, gabbled an inane excuse to the air around his friends, mounted Puppy and practically  _ cantered  _ into the woods.

Frankly, Seungmin had no idea how he found the dragon’s cave again - but find it he did, and the credit for that went to Puppy. The dragon was curled on top of his cave, sunbathing in the weak sunlight. His scales drew in the light and sparkled, orange-red today instead of red, with little hints of gold.

‘Little knight,’ he greeted, cracking one eye open and turning over to look at him. ‘You’re back soon. How’s your head?’

‘Good, thank you.’ Seungmin didn’t dismount: he could see the dragon better from Puppy’s back, anyway.

‘Glad to hear it.’ The dragon shuffled around until he was on his belly, tail hanging off the ledge. ‘The rock soaks up the sunlight,’ he explained companionably. ‘You brought your horse but no armour, little knight?’

‘I have a name,’ Seungmin protested. By this point he was pretty sure that the dragon wasn’t about to kill him, so really, it was a prime time to explain that he wasn’t  _ that  _ little. Certainly not as little as Jisung, in any case. ‘I’m not _ little. _ You’re just big.’

‘I have a name too,’ the dragon pointed out. ‘It’s Jeongin. And you’re littler than me.’

‘I’m Sir Seungmin,’ Seungmin said. He almost held out his hand to shake. Jeongin snorted. He humoured Seungmin by slipping the tip of his tail into Seungmin’s hand.

‘I like  _ little knight _ more,’ Jeongin said, finally slithering down from on top of the rock. ‘Seungmin. So what brings you here today, little knight? More herbs? Another tree you wanted to see?’

‘Puppy needed exercising,’ Seungmin told him. And yes, Seungmin was fully aware that, in a competition between all the excuses he’d ever come up with, that one wouldn’t hold up for long. Oh well.

‘Did she?’ Jeongin peered down at Puppy. ‘She looks like she’s in the pink of health. Isn’t she still tired from running away from those mannerless knights?’

Seungmin grumbled. ‘I came to ask,’ he said eventually. ‘Did you want your spoon back?’ The spoon was, at that moment, sitting on Seungmin’s table at home. If Jeongin wanted it back, Seungmin would have to go home and bring it again tomorrow. What a tragic prospect.

‘No,’ Jeongin said. ‘It’s for you. Keep it. You seem to get into an unnecessary amount of trouble.’ He sounded amused, for some reason, and there was a knowing sparkle in his eye that suggested he knew exactly what Seungmin was getting at.

‘Thank you.’

‘I think you need a few lessons on plants, though. You don’t know what  _ fennel  _ looks like.’

Seungmin pouted. He didn’t voice a protest, though - as Minho loved to remind him, he really didn’t know much about plants. (Felix was particularly fond of a story he’d tell every chance he got, although Seungmin liked to loudly groan and interrupt when it got to the part where Seungmin, unknowingly, almost murdered his friends.)

‘Come back in… a week, I think? I need to sleep, but after that I can teach you plants and things.’ Jeongin peered down at Seungmin, an almost  _ hopeful  _ light in his eyes. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Definitely,’ Seungmin said. His tummy did a funny twisty thing. ‘I’ll come back in a week?’

‘See you then, little knight.’ Jeongin slid back into his cave. Seungmin stared at the mouth of the cave for a moment, then he wheeled Puppy around and made his way back to the village.

So. Those are the reasons that Seungmin is confused, and perhaps his confusion is diffusing into the air around him, or perhaps his excuses to visit the forest have become too inane. Whatever the reason is, Seungmin wakes up the next morning, leaves his house, and walks slap bang into two shields.

Seungmin blinks at the arms on the shields. It’s  _ far  _ too early for this. On his left,  _ rising sun or, mounted on field azure. _ Felix. On his right, _ setting sun or, mounted on field azure. _ Jisung. Felix and Jisung, and their matching shields. Felix and Jisung, standing right outside his front door; the first thing he sees this morning. Jisung interrupts Seungmin as he is seriously considering turning around and walking straight back inside.

‘Sir Seungmin,’ he says, slipping into the High Language of Chivalry abruptly. ‘We fear that something has been ailing thee these past days.’

‘Indeed,’ Felix echoes solemnly, resting his hand on Seungmin’s shoulder. ‘It is of mine and Sir Jisung’s opinion that thou art in need of a trip to the lake.’

‘We’re not about to fight,’ Seungmin sighs. ‘I beg of you, speak normally.’ Seungmin normally  _ loves  _ speaking in the High Language of Chivalry - but then, normally, his head isn’t stuffed with plants. Jeongin had said that he’d teach Seungmin about plants, and he had  _ meant  _ it. Jisung pats Seungmin’s other shoulder sympathetically, and Seungmin rests his hand on top of Jisung’s. ‘Are we going to the lake today?’

‘We are. We  _ miss  _ you.’

‘I miss you too,’ Seungmin says, squeezing Jisung’s hand. ‘Let me just get my things.’ He ducks back inside, gathers his things, and then they set off. They spend all day at the lake, catching up and kicking about.

* * *

Changbin eyes his brother. He’s back in his dragon body now, and it’s freeing; all his fire finally has space to spread out, no longer compressed inside a small body. Jeongin is mellower than Changbin, though, and he doesn’t spend as much time in his human body - he has less fire and it’s less cooped up than Changbin’s. Still, the heat that rolls off Changbin in waves is helpful for Hyunjin, and Changbin is nothing if not always on the lookout for opportunities to help his friends (that, and his dragon body doesn’t fit in Hyunjin’s forge).

‘So,’ Changbin starts. Jeongin looks up from where he’s trying to fit an entire cow in his jaws, in one bite. Changbin sighs, deep and long-suffering. He didn’t spend half a day painstakingly luring two cows away from some baron’s field for Jeongin to gobble his up in one go like this.

Jeongin says ‘Mmph?’

‘Who’s that knight who keeps turning up? I wanted to come nap with you yesterday, but he was there and I didn’t want to scare him.’

Jeongin closes his jaws with a snap of bone. Eventually, he swallows the cow and speaks. ‘Stop pouting, Bin. You wouldn’t have scared him. His name is Seungmin; I’m teaching him about plants.’

‘He has a name? I thought he went by  _ little knight.’ _

Jeongin sighs. ‘Why does  _ my  _ brother have to be the most insufferable?’ he asks the roof of Changbin’s cave. The cave doesn’t grace him with an answer. ‘I call him _ little knight  _ in the same way that I call you _ Incredible Annoyance Of A Brother. _ It’s funny.’

Changbin shrugs. ‘I suppose so. Still,’ he turns to study Jeongin, ‘I think he’s not as little as you. I met him in Hyunjin’s forge; I’m fairly sure he’s bigger than you.’ Jeongin flicks his tongue out at Changbin, tasting the air lazily. ‘Go on, show me,’ Changbin urges. It’s been a while since he saw Jeongin in his human body.

Jeongin sighs again, to let the cave know that he has the most insufferable brother to ever exist. Still, he nudges the remains of his cow over to Changbin, and slips into his human body again.

Changbin peers down at him, crouching to better observe. He’d forgotten how  _ sharp  _ Jeongin looks like this; tiny, yes, but sharp, too, in a way he can’t quite put into words. Jeongin’s head is a sort of rich azure, bright in a way that makes it seem as if all the colour in the world is bursting in his hair. Changbin thinks that’s funny, when Jeongin’s  _ scales  _ are red and gold. His eyes are gold now, shining brightly up at Changbin, reflecting off his piles and piles of shiny things. ‘I think you  _ are  _ littler than him,’ Changbin decides eventually, squinting. ‘Absolutely tiny.’

Jeongin huffs, then wiggles his fingers, observing his hands.

It’s good that Jeongin is making friends. Hyunjin is a good friend to them, but there’s only one of him, and Changbin knows that Jeongin gets lonely sometimes. This new friendship will be good for him.

* * *

The spring passes in this manner, with Seungmin making his way into the woods every few days to learn more about plants. They do run out of plants eventually, but what happens then is that they migrate to Jeongin’s cave, and Jeongin tells Seungmin about whatever thing he picks up. Seungmin meets Jeongin’s brother eventually - Changbin, who, in a shocking turn of events, turns out to be the Changbin Seungmin had met in Hyunjin’s forge. Jeongin can hardly have a problem with his own brother living in his woods, Seungmin muses.  _ Exceptions  _ indeed.

Seungmin gets to visit Changbin’s cave, too, one eventful day. It happens like this: he and Jeongin are sitting around the golden tree, because it is still one of the most beautiful things Seungmin has ever seen, when the floor starts shaking.

Jeongin twists his neck to see out of the cave. ‘Blast it,’ he remarks calmly, before grabbing Seungmin around the middle and depositing him on a ledge near the ceiling of his cave. ‘Stay there, little knight.’

Seungmin has no choice but to stay there. He can’t fly, and there aren’t exactly many hand-holds for him to climb down.

Jeongin starts scrabbling around in his gold, searching for something. The temperature in the cave rises a notch. There is a boulder buried in the midst of all the gold. Why is there a boulder buried in the midst of all the gold? It isn’t shiny. Jeongin digs it out and rolls it to the entrance of his cave. It’s almost the exact right size to block off the entrance fully. Hmm. Seungmin watches warily. What is it that’s thundering outside, worrisome enough for Jeongin to block his cave? Jeongin chooses this point to fling his wings out, effectively blocking Seungmin’s field of view. From the sound of things, he hits the rocks piled around the cave entrance with a concentrated burst of flame, so he’s also blocked the heat from burning Seungmin to a crisp. Handy.

‘We should go,’ Jeongin growls. His voice is still crackling from the fire. ‘Up there, little knight.’ He nudges Seungmin over to an opening high on the wall of the cave. ‘There’s a ledge out there, it can fit both of us.’ Seungmin drags his gaze over Jeongin. Somehow, he doubts the ledge will fit both him  _ and  _ a massive dragon. Still, Jeongin must know what he’s doing. Seungmin slips through the opening, blinking in the bright, sudden sunlight and clinging to the wall.

Someone steps out next to him. Seungmin almost topples off the ledge. (Thankfully, he’s caught about the arm before he can fall, which he’s grateful for, since it would have been quite the drop.)

‘It’s me,’ the stranger eventually ventures, after being stared at by Seungmin for quite a while. Except - he’s not a stranger, and Seungmin can  _ finally _ put a name to the golden stranger from the marketplace. ‘I’m Jeongin? You don’t recognise me, little knight?’

There are a lot of things Seungmin could say; about the sudden scratchiness of Jeongin’s voice, or about how the gold in his eyes is so much more  _ concentrated  _ up close, or about how Jeongin’s hand on his arm is still so  _ warm _ \- or perhaps that Jeongin’s hair is  _ blue,  _ a sort of bright blue like the sea on a particularly sunny morning (where did the blue come from?), or maybe even that  _ Jeongin  _ is the stranger with the golden eyes from the marketplace, but what he opts for is, ‘I thought you were a dragon?’

‘You’re too close to the edge,’ Jeongin mutters, flicking his gaze at the ground beneath them. He grabs Seungmin and manoeuvres him closer to the wall. His hands are _warm_ where they rest on Seungmin’s shoulders. He meets Seungmin’s eyes again, and Seungmin is struck by how _sharp_ Jeongin’s eyes are, sharp and welling with gold, with something flickering in their depths. ‘I _am_ a dragon, little knight. You met Changbin, remember? It’s the same thing.’ Seungmin does remember: Jeongin had introduced him to his brother, Seungmin’s vision had been filled with deep blue and pools of silver, and then there had been a man in front of him - a man he recognised from Hyunjin’s forge.

‘If you say so.’ Seungmin glances back at the cave. ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t bring Puppy today.’ Jeongin hums absentmindedly, scanning the sky. ‘Are we going to be out here for a while, Jeongin?’

‘No,’ Jeongin says, squeezing Seungmin’s arm reassuringly. ‘We’re going to go to Bin’s cave. We’re just waiting for him to-’

Changbin chooses that moment to swoop in and scoop them both up.

‘It  _ is  _ a bit disorienting, isn’t it? There’s no space for all the air to go.’

Seungmin, horribly sea-sick again, elects not to answer. Jeongin rubs his back soothingly.

Soon, Changbin alights outside a cliff face. Rearing up, he places them gently inside his cave, which is half-way up the cliff face. Jeongin crouches down next to Seungmin, still patting his back.

‘Come on, little knight,’ he murmurs, as Changbin enters the cave and curls his tail loosely around the room, circling them in. It feels comforting, somehow. Jeongin hands Seungmin some leaves. ‘Here. This will clear your head.’

Seungmin takes the leaves, letting out a breath when his head stops pounding. ‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ Jeongin helps Seungmin up.

‘Didn’t you say there was no space for all the air to go?’

‘Right.’ Jeongin turns Seungmin’s face gently to the side, so he’s facing away from him, then hisses. It’s still startlingly sibilant, especially now that he looks like any other person. Instead of a jet of flame, there’s a jet of compressed air. Seungmin steps back. ‘There,’ Jeongin says, satisfied. ‘Space for the air.’

‘Did you seal your cave?’ Changbin asks. Seungmin looks around his cave. There’s a lot less gold here than in Jeongin’s cave; a lot more silver and steel and, strangely, lots of things that Seungmin remembers seeing starting life in Hyunjin’s forge. 

‘I did. They’ll be gone in a few days.’

‘Who were they?’ Seungmin cuts in. He hadn’t had a chance to look at the mysterious invaders before Jeongin had sealed the cave.

‘Some lord’s men. They think I stole his great-great-great-grandmother’s mirror.’ Jeongin starts towards the far corner of Changbin’s cave, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous area.

Seungmin follows hastily. ‘Did you?’ Changbin starts rifling around in one of his piles. Seungmin pulls Jeongin to the left a bit; Changbin is big, and the piles are big, and he wouldn’t want to be nearby if one of them toppled over.

‘No,’ Jeongin says, just as Changbin cries ‘Found it!’ and drops a bed in front of them. It has a canopy, and what looks like a down mattress. Staring at the wooden carvings on the legs, Seungmin has a vague memory of Sir Belleus’ bed going missing from his pavilion a few years ago.

‘Are you trying to  _ kill  _ our frail human bodies?’ Jeongin splutters, grabbing Seungmin’s arm and pulling him right up to the wall of the cave just as the bed hits the floor.

‘Your frail human bodies will hurt if you sit on the  _ floor,’ _ Changbin points out. ‘I got this bed specifically  _ for  _ frail human bodies to sit on.’

‘You mean you spend so much time in  _ your  _ frail human body that you’ve become weak.’

Seungmin chokes back a laugh. Changbin is massive, so big that Seungmin can't quite wrap his head around it, so much bigger than Jeongin, who can at least fit mostly in Seungmin’s field of view - and even then Seungmin sometimes has to tilt his head up, up,  _ up  _ to see him. Changbin’s not particularly unimpressive in his  _ frail human _ body, either. Seungmin certainly wouldn’t think of  _ weak  _ in conjunction with Changbin.

‘Yah, Jeonginnie,’ Changbin grunts. ‘Why are you so  _ mean  _ to me?’ Shaking his head, he turns back to the piles, digging through them for something else. He’s halfway across the cave now, but still, Seungmin eyes the mountain of things warily.

Jeongin giggles. Something about the noise arrests Seungmin. Is it the fact that associating such an innocent noise with a  _ dragon  _ is jarring? Or is it the fact that Jeongin’s giggle peals like  _ bells, _ sweet and clear, and the way Jeongin’s eyes curve is strangely interesting? Seungmin can see Jeongin’s smile better like this, he realises. It’s almost painfully bright.

Seungmin shakes his head, clears his thoughts. ‘Are you not going to be able to go back to your cave?’ he asks. Jeongin pats down the mattress, raising an eyebrow at the dust that flies off it.

‘Not for a few days,’ he says. ‘But after a while they’ll get bored and go away. Don’t worry; I know it’s far for you to go back home. I’ll fly you back later, you don’t have to walk back.’

That’s not what Seungmin had been getting at, although he is grateful he won’t have to walk back. He’d probably get lost, and find himself doomed to wander the woods for the rest of his days (or until Jeongin turns up, groaning that Seungmin is being too loud and he’s trying to  _ sleep). _ ‘I meant where are you going to sleep?’

‘Here, probably,’ Jeongin muses, settling onto the bed, cross-legged. ‘Maybe out on the mountain, if the day is especially warm.’ He holds his hand out to Seungmin, pulling him up onto the bed. Seungmin settles next to Jeongin.

‘What if a goat steps on you?’ Seungmin wonders. Jeongin laughs so hard he chokes, and has to brush some tears away. 

‘If a goat steps on me, then I’ll make friends with it, obviously. Or I’ll have lunch.’

Fair enough. Jeongin waves his hand airily while making this declaration, and Seungmin notices that, not only is Jeongin’s hair blue where his scales are red and gold, but he has no  _ claws.  _ ‘Where are your claws?’ Seungmin asks, grabbing Jeongin’s hand. His fingers are long, elegant, and his hand is unexpectedly soft - but his fingernails are the same as Seungmin’s, short and neatly trimmed. Seungmin runs his fingers over the tips of Jeongin’s fingers. ‘Your claws are gone,’ he says quietly. He feels strangely disappointed.

‘I know,’ Jeongin says, dissatisfied. ‘What if I need to grab something? Or stab something? How do you manage without claws  _ all the time?’ _

‘I have no idea,’ Seungmin says. ‘Maybe that’s why I wear armour when I fight. That’s just a thought, though. Likely not the real reason.’

Jeongin chuckles. The sound is still doing funny things to Seungmin’s tummy. Maybe he’s still unsettled from the flight earlier. ‘Likely. I still have my teeth, though, thankfully.’ He turns to face Seungmin then, smiling, and Seungmin surmises that he does indeed still have his teeth, and they are indeed still sharp.

‘You do.’ Seungmin shuffles forward slightly, his knees brushing Jeongin’s. Jeongin watches him curiously. ‘How sharp are they?’

‘Sharp enough,’ Jeongin says, and there’s a keen, almost razor-like quality to his smile now, almost clashing with the warmth in his eyes. ‘Do you want to feel?’

Seungmin blinks at him, eyes wide. ‘Can I?’ Jeongin nods, something  _ hot  _ \- almost  _ flames  _ \- flickering and licking at the edges of his smile. Seungmin leans forward; finds himself holding his breath, for some reason; brings his hand up to gently lift Jeongin’s jaw. Jeongin’s skin is soft, so, so soft, and it surprises Seungmin for a moment, because Jeongin’s scales are nowhere near this soft. He runs his finger along the tip of one of Jeongin’s fangs, cradling the back of Jeongin’s head with his other hand, the twin sensations of  _ heat  _ emanating from Jeongin’s jaw and  _ sharp  _ from where his fang is pressed into Seungmin’s thumb making Seungmin’s vision hazy for a moment.

Strangely, Jeongin’s face is reddening, steadily approaching the red of his scales. Interesting, Seungmin thinks. He sits back on his heels. Jeongin blinks, then offers Seungmin a small smile. ‘Sharp?’

‘Yes,’ Seungmin says absentmindedly, looking at the pink indent on his thumb. For a moment he considers sucking it the way you’re supposed to do when you get a splinter, but something about the action feels a little…  _ too much, _ somehow, for this stolen bed in Changbin’s cave. He places his hand on the bed, pressing his fingers into the mattress. ‘Very sharp.’

‘While this conversation is riveting,’ Changbin’s voice comes out of _ nowhere, _ as do the two pillows he drops on Seungmin’s head. Seungmin finds it impressive that, despite his wickedly sharp claws, Changbin doesn’t shred the delicate pillows at _ all. _ ‘It’s getting late, Seungminnie. If Jeongin is going to fly you home before night, you should leave now.’

‘Right,’ Jeongin nods, getting up. He holds his hand out to Seungmin again, helping him off the bed. Seungmin is neither delicate nor too short to get off the bed himself. He can’t quite find it within himself to care. Jeongin steps back, and in a moment he’s before them, in all his dragony, red-and-gold glory. Or maybe gold-and-red glory, this time. He seems to be distinctly more gold than before. Seungmin wonders why.

Seungmin pats Changbin’s tail goodbye, waving, although he’s uncertain whether Changbin can see him from all the way up there. Jeongin slinks out of the cave, smacking Changbin with his wing as he passes. Seungmin follows him to the cave entrance, peering down at the ground.

‘Here, little knight.’ Jeongin rears up, resting his front claws on the wall by Seungmin’s feet. Seungmin climbs into Jeongin’s cupped claws, settling down. Jeongin closes his claws around Seungmin - they’d reasoned earlier that, if Seungmin couldn’t  _ see  _ the ground, maybe he’d feel less nauseated after flying.

Thankfully, it seems to work - a bit. Jeongin sets Seungmin down at the edge of the wood, and Seungmin  _ almost  _ doesn't need the leaves. 

Instead of looming over him like a giant, golden statue, Jeongin slips into his human body again. 'Be careful, little knight,' he murmurs, reaching for Seungmin's arm. His golden eyes shine in the twilight gloom, shadows from the trees flickering across his face, adding a strange, almost unreadable depth to Jeongin's eyes. 

'Little knight,' Seungmin echoes curiously, placing his hand on top of Jeongin's for a moment, then trailing it up to rest on Jeongin's shoulder. The funny thing is that Jeongin  _ isn't  _ bigger than him now - yes, there is only a small difference between them, but Jeongin has to look up slightly to meet his eyes, and Seungmin finally can look at him without developing an uncomfortable crick in his neck. Jeongin just seems  _ small, _ almost as if he would fit tucked under Seungmin's arm. 'How can you call me  _ little knight _ when  _ you  _ are little? I didn't realise you would be so small.'

'You're littler than me,' Jeongin pouts, tapping Seungmin's chest. Seungmin is already inclined to disagree, but something about Jeongin's pout screams  _ small  _ and  _ precious, _ too. 'I'm not  _ small.' _

'Tiny,' Seungmin grins, ruffling Jeongin's hair. 'Absolutely tiny. So small.'

Jeongin huffs out a breath, crossing his arms. 'No, I'm really not,' he protests, forked tongue slipping out to taste the air agitatedly. 'It's getting late,' he adds regretfully, glancing at the road that leads back to the village. 'You should get going now, if you want to be back before it's pitch black.'

Seungmin nods. 'I should.' 

Jeongin reaches for Seungmin's arm again. 'Don't come back for a while; the lord's men won't leave my cave for a few days - it won’t really be safe for a bit, and Changbin's cave is far too far for you to walk all the way - or even ride on Puppy.'

'All right,' Seungmin says. 'Be safe.' Jeongin nods, gives his arm a quick squeeze, and melts into the shadows.

Seungmin lets a small smile curl the edges of his mouth. Something about this urgent good-bye at the edge of the wood, cloistered by the purple darkness of twilight, tugs strangely at his mind, bringing back memories of countless stories told to him and Wonpil as they sat, open-mouthed, around a fire. Somehow, it was never the friends, or mere acquaintances, who were allowed to have tension-fraught, hidden, twilit good-byes. (This is something Seungmin will definitely think about later, while staring at the golden branch on his dining table - something he does a lot, because, unlike normal trees, it hasn't shrivelled and wilted yet; and it reminds him of Jeongin, even though he hardly needs reminding, when the dragon hasn’t left his mind at all lately.)

* * *

Minho is up on his podium. He can see the entirety of the town square from here, as well as the road into the village and quite a bit down a few side roads. The echoes are remarkable, and the foot-traffic is quite sizeable, making it the best place for him to do his announcements - especially the ones less pedestrian in nature. He’s currently telling the townspeople What It Feels Like When Bang Chan Hugs You. He’s just got to the bit where your insides melt because his hugs are so full of love when Chan marches up to his podium. He’s hanging his head in the way he normally does when embarrassed - he’s probably a delicious shade of red beneath his helmet, Minho thinks fondly - which means he must have caught the bit where Minho loudly described another thing he loves about Chan’s arms: namely, that they’re so muscular.

‘Min,’ he says, reaching for Minho’s hand and squeezing it. Minho squeezes back, sitting down on the edge of his podium to better reach Chan. Chan tiptoes, placing a flower crown that he conjures out of nowhere on the crown of Minho’s head, and well, maybe Chan  _ isn’t  _ the only one who’s presumably bright red right now. ‘Do you really need to tell the whole village about my arms?’

‘Catch me,’ Minho laughs gaily, jumping down from his podium and into Chan’s arms. ‘Channie.’ Still in Chan’s arms, he reaches up to tug Chan’s helmet off, and presses a kiss to Chan’s forehead in thanks. ‘It’s beautiful, Channie, thank you.’

‘Not as beautiful as you,’ Chan mumbles, flushing pink as soon as he says it. Minho squishes Chan’s cheeks, delighting in the pretty flush coating his cheeks.

‘Oh, Channie,’ Minho presses his forehead to Chan’s. ‘And yes, the village needs to know all about your arms, dear, it’s incredibly important knowledge.’ Chan sighs. He shakes his head fondly and places Minho back on his podium.

Minho’s about to say something, but he closes his mouth with a snap. Chan turns to see what caught Minho’s eye.

‘It’s our Seungminnie,’ Minho says pointing at where Seungmin is coming through the gates. He looks dazed, almost. Either way, he doesn’t blink at Sir Jihoon threatening Mingyu with a guitar. ‘He’s been so distracted lately. I don’t know why.’

‘I noticed,’ Chan sighs. ‘I’m not sure what we can do about it, but other than being distracted, he seems all right. He doesn’t seem upset, or hurt, or anything, just distracted.’

‘Maybe we should have him round for dinner,’ Minho suggests. ‘That cockerel of ours has been waking you at the crack of dawn for quite a while, don’t you think?’

Chan laughs, bright and clear. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s do that. You can have your revenge on the cockerel, too.’

* * *

Dinner with Chan and Minho is nice. It always is, though. There’s going to be a tournament soon, and a lot of squires will be knighted. That’s nice. Seungmin loves seeing excited young squires being knighted, becoming able to go out and practice chivalry, to the benefit of all the land. He spends his week training and practicing with Chan, Jisung and Felix, laughter following them across the fields when it turns out Jisung has forgotten how to joust, and gets knocked off his horse immediately. They have an impromptu picnic then (although, really, are any of their picnics impromptu? It’s almost a tradition at this point, them interrupting whatever they’re doing to have a picnic).

Sir Matthew arrives at the castle a few days early, with his friends - and, strangely, Wonpil and the others - trailing behind him. They have a feast that night, celebrating the success of Wonpil and the others’ quest.

After a week, Seungmin decides that the lord’s men must have left Jeongin’s cave by now. Besides, he’d visited the kitchens earlier, and there’d been a whole tart left over from last night that one of the cooks, Mingyu, had given him, and now Seungmin has a whole berry tart and no one to eat it with, because Chan is out riding with Matthew, and Jisung and Felix are doing something that is probably far more romantic than it needs to be. Minho is consulting with Hyunjin on a Secret Present for Chan, and it’s a Secret, so Chan (and Seungmin, Jisung and Felix as well, by virtue of all being knights) are all barred from the forge.

Seungmin leaves Puppy in the stables, because if he’s going to be jousting then she should be well-rested. He wraps the tart in a cloth, dons his light leather armour - but not the full suit - just in case, and sets off.

Jeongin wanders out of the trees just as Seungmin is stepping over a brook. Some of the golden sunlight breaking through the leaves hits him for a moment, flickering across his face, and for a moment he strongly resembles nothing so much as a fay prince. The air glows around him, in the same manner as beams of light cutting through the slits in the castle walls to make the dust motes dance. The light bounces off his hair, and for a second Seungmin’s vision is blue.

‘Good morning,’ Jeongin says, stopping next to Seungmin. ‘I slept well this week. I think Changbin’s cave is cosier than mine.’

‘I like yours better,’ Seungmin says, nudging Jeongin over to a fallen tree, to sit down. ‘Are the men gone?’

‘Yes,’ Jeongin says. ‘But the weather is so nice today; I thought sitting outside would be nicer.’

‘It is lovely today, isn’t it?’ Seungmin unwraps the cloth, pulling out the tart. ‘There was a feast yesterday. We’re going to have a tournament soon, so lots of knights are arriving in dribs and drabs.’

‘Really?’ Jeongin shuffles a little closer on the log, so his leg is brushing Seungmin’s. ‘We should pop by my cave later, then. What’s in the tart?’

‘Berries, I think. Minho and Felix went berry-picking a few days ago.’

‘I felt them,’ Jeongin says. ‘It should be yummy, then.’

Seungmin raises an eyebrow. ‘You were all the way across the woods, in Changbin’s mountain cave. How did you feel them?’

Jeongin grins. It should be sinister, or scary, at the least, but all Seungmin feels is a slight pressure on the pad of his thumb. ‘It’s a secret,’ he says.

Seungmin hums noncommittally. He splits the tart, and hands Jeongin his half. Jeongin takes it with thanks. Seungmin is lucky enough to have had lots of Mingyu’s food, so he makes sure that he catches the exact second that Jeongin’s eyes widen, and he starts eating with gusto. Seungmin laughs and digs into his own tart-half.

_ ‘Mmm,’ _ Jeongin says, licking his fingers. Half the jam from the tart seems to have made itself at home on his face. ‘That was  _ divine.  _ Thank you.’

‘It  _ was,’ _ Seungmin says dreamily, licking his lips. He digs a clean hanky out of his pocket, dipping it in the stream to wet it. ‘Come here.’ He takes Jeongin’s face gently in his hands, laughing at the mess, and dabs at the jam. Jeongin gives him a soft smile, lets his eyes flutter shut, and in the background the stream tinkles merrily. This would make a glorious painting, Seungmin thinks suddenly, if he had even one remotely artistic bone in his body. He knows he could never do this moment  _ justice, _ though - it seems impossible.

Eventually he sits back again, swinging his legs and gazing off at the trees. Jeongin opens his eyes and smiles again. ‘So have you been practicing hard for the tournament? How soon is it?’

‘In two days. I’ve been practicing hard, yes, with Chan and the others. I think I’ll be jousting.’ Jeongin  _ ooh _ s appreciatively. ‘What about you? Did a goat step on you?’

Jeongin giggles. ‘Yes. It made a yummy lunch.’

‘I  _ told  _ you a goat would step on you.’ 

‘And you were right.’ Jeongin pats Seungmin’s arm solemnly. ‘Please share more of your wisdom and incredible acumen with me.’

‘Of course,’ Seungmin laughs. ‘The nugget of wisdom I have today is that we should head back to your cave. It’s awfully cold out here, suddenly. I don’t want to catch my death before the tournament.’

‘True,’ Jeongin says. He looks at Seungmin for a moment, then hesitantly inches his arm around Seungmin’s shoulders. ‘So you don’t feel cold,’ he explains, almost apologetically.

Seungmin presses a little closer to Jeongin, no longer shivering, basking in the warmth rolling off Jeongin in waves. ‘Thank you,’ he says quietly, as they make their way back to Jeongin’s cave.

Jeongin turns back into a dragon just to deposit Seungmin on a ledge half-way up the wall. He joins Seungmin there, back against the wall of the cave, swinging their legs as they look out at Jeongin’s piles of shiny things.

‘How many knights are going to be at your tournament?’ Jeongin asks, turning over the cloth Seungmin had used to carry the tart in his hands.

‘Lots,’ Seungmin says. ‘They’re coming from all over the country.’

‘And do you wear favours?’ Jeongin twists the cloth around his hands. There’s something strangely nervous colouring his voice.

‘Jisung always gives Felix a really extravagant and fluttery sash, and Felix generally gives him a fluttery ribbon. Minho has given Chan just about everything - sleeves, sashes, ribbons, hankies, gloves. I’m not sure what he’ll give Chan this year.’ It’s lovely, really; Seungmin always loves seeing the beautiful favours his friends give each other. He’d worn a favour from his mother in his first tournament, but since then she’s been in Spain, too far away to attend any of his and Wonpil’s tournaments.

‘And you?’ Jeongin asks quietly.

‘No,’ Seungmin says softly. He’s not sure why they’re both speaking so quietly, but it feels  _ wrong  _ to do anything else. Gently, Seungmin takes the cloth from Jeongin, before he can wring it beyond use.

‘Would you…  _ like  _ to wear a favour?’ Jeongin whispers, staring resolutely at the ground.

Seungmin’s heart does a funny fluttery thing. ‘Yours?’ he breathes.

Jeongin glances up at him. ‘Yes.’ It feels strangely like a confession, like an admission that has to be dragged out of him, but Seungmin takes Jeongin’s hand and Jeongin gives him a smile that’s blinding. Jeongin silently pulls a cloth out of a crevice in the rock behind them. It’s cream-coloured, shot through with veins of gold, soft and shiny and  _ gorgeous.  _ Seungmin takes it, runs his hands along its soft length reverently, glances up at Jeongin and - almost falls off the ledge, because there’s something much akin to  _ adoration  _ in Jeongin’s eyes, and it makes Seungmin feel all tingly.

‘Thank you,’ he manages to choke out. Jeongin squeezes his hand. Seungmin’s cheeks are strangely warm, now - although Jeongin’s are, too. Hopefully, Jeongin will put it down to the warmth he exudes.

* * *

The kitchens are up to their knees in preparation for another feast today - the thing about tournaments is that they require a feast  _ every night _ \- so Felix has offered to take some of the work off them and make some of the food. Minho is off working on his Secret Present For Chan with Hyunjin (who is, at the same time, shoeing a horse, because tournaments are one of the busiest parts of the year for him), so Felix sets out to find someone else. Instead of Sir Matthew, Chan is now helping Sir Jinyoung and Sir BamBam with something, and Jisung is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s off pestering Younghyun, or perhaps Lady Jihyo roped him into helping her with some of the banners. Either way, Seungmin is the only one of his friends he comes across, polishing his armour with Wonpil - or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that Wonpil is polishing his armour, but Seungmin is staring at it vaguely, clearly not paying attention to the corner of the breastplate he’s been polishing for the past five minutes.

‘Minnie,’ Felix says, stopping in front of him. ‘Should I make a cockatrice, or should I use a hare and a cockerel? Someone brought a peacock - I don’t envy Mingyu having to sew that together.’

Seungmin puts his breastplate down. ‘Have you done a cockatrice before?’ he asks, tilting his head. ‘I think a hare would be interesting; do you need me to catch you one?’

‘No,’ Felix says. ‘Jisung and Squirrel caught me one this morning. I just needed a second opinion. Also, everyone’s gone. Come be my helpful assistant?’

‘As opposed to an  _ unhelpful  _ assistant?’ Seungmin asks dryly, passing his cloth and polish to Wonpil and getting up.

Felix chuckles. They wave goodbye to Wonpil and head back to Felix’s cottage. Felix sets Seungmin to skinning the hare while he plucks the cockerel, then Seungmin holds the two steady while Felix sews them together, intense concentration evident on his face. His stitches have to be tiny and neat and even; the seam between the two animals needs to be invisible to the naked eye. This isn’t the first time Felix has made a cockatrice, but it doesn’t get any easier the third time around.

Eventually, they’re done, and they both let out a sigh of relief. ‘Go and make yourself useful somewhere else,’ Felix says, after they’ve been collapsed on the floor for fifteen minutes. ‘I need to watch this. I think they probably need help up at the castle, though.’

Felix pats Seungmin’ shoulder on his way out, and Seungmin makes his way up to the castle.

* * *

‘Are you trapped, little knight?’ 

Jeongin’s voice comes out of nowhere, and Seungmin jumps so high he almost hits the rafters, narrowly avoiding tripping over one of the boxes and falling flat on his face. He turns around and is graced with the sight of Jeongin eying him through the window. The thing is, this is one of the only non-slit windows in the castle - and it’s a  _ window, _ in the  _ castle,  _ and  _ Jeongin  _ is  _ here.  _ Seungmin makes his way over to the window and looks down. Jeongin’s feet are resting in the moat, and he’s leaning forward, resting his claws on the wall of the tower. 

Now that Seungmin has seen him, Jeongin brings his head forward to rest what little of his head will fit on the windowsill. ‘Locked up? Do you need rescuing?’

‘Ah,’ Seungmin says, blinking in confusion. How did Jeongin even  _ get  _ there? Seungmin hadn’t known that Jeongin knew where the castle was, let alone that he was going to  _ walk through the town and stand right outside the castle. _ ‘No, I’m not locked up.’ Jeongin nods at that, drawing his head back. As Seungmin continues, he places one claw on the windowsill, slips into his human body quickly, and, still gripping the windowsill, pulls himself up and into the room, accepting Seungmin’s hand and dusting himself off once he’s inside. ‘I’m just up here getting some things for the ceremony. We’re knighting Chenle today.’

‘Ooh,’ says Jeongin, peering at the brocade of Seungmin’s tunic. ‘Is that why you’re dressed up? Are these your fancy court clothes?’ He reaches for the candle Seungmin had set on top of a box and brings it close, inspecting Seungmin’s tunic. The gleam of the shining silver threads reflects in his eyes, and Seungmin notices that as the sparkle hits them, his pupils dilate, round like a cat just discovering catnip. ‘They’re shiny. _ Pretty.’ _

‘Thank you,’ Seungmin says, grateful that the darkness of the room will hide how his cheeks have stained red. 

‘Just like you,’ Jeongin murmurs, absentmindedly, and Seungmin almost doesn’t hear it. But he does hear it, he does catch the quiet musing of Jeongin’s voice, and he flushes an even deeper red.

He turns and gathers up his boxes. ‘Can you…’ he asks quietly, jerking his head at the door. Jeongin watches him, amused, and holds the door open for him.

‘So, no jousting today?’ Jeongin asks, taking one of the boxes from Seungmin and stepping onto the stairwell behind him.

‘Nope,’ Seungmin replies, adjusting his boxes and sending Jeongin a quick smile in thanks. ‘Today is knighting all the squires and a sort of demonstration from Sir Soonyoung, Sir Junhui, Sir Minghao and Sir Chan - he’s not our Chan, obviously, he’s a different Chan. The jousting is tomorrow.’

‘I might come and watch,’ Jeongin says, holding open another door as Seungmin ducks through. ‘Would that be all right? Changbin is coming, too; we’re going to sit with Hyunjin.’

‘I don’t see why it wouldn’t be,’ Seungmin says, setting his box down. Jeongin places his box next to it. ‘I’ll have to try extra hard to win, won’t I?’

‘I’m sure you’d’ve won either way,’ Jeongin smiles, like that isn’t an outrageous compliment, especially considering all the amazing knights taking part in the tournament.

‘You’re biased,’ Seungmin says, dusting himself off - boxes stored in the turrets are, invariably, incredibly dusty. 

‘I am,’ Jeongin readily agrees, patting down Seungmin’s hair. Incredible. The boxes were so dusty that the dust spread to Seungmin’s  _ hair. _ ‘But I’m still sure that you’ll win.’ Something about his wide grin is disarming; Seungmin blinks and shakes his head. He heads towards the door.

‘I suppose I’ll have to, now, won’t I?’ Jeongin’s favour will probably give him extra encouragement, or something - the way Chan tells it, favours actually  _ stand up _ and  _ cheer you on, _ inspiring within you a greater need to win than is typical.

‘Wait.’ Jeongin grabs Seungmin’s arm. ‘I actually came to ask you if you had any pressing thing to do later? I found something really amazing and I’d like to show you; you’ll probably be really tired tomorrow, so I thought maybe you could come and see it today?’

‘Oh,’ Seungmin says. ‘Really?’

Jeongin nods.

‘I think I’ll probably be able to slip away from the great hall after two hours, is that all right?’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Jeongin says, squeezing Seungmin’s arm. ‘I’ll come and get you then.’ He ushers Seungmin out of the room, then steps back onto the stairwell. ‘My congratulations to Chenle, by the way - I hope he makes a wonderful knight.’

‘He will. How are you going to get out?’

‘The same way I got in, obviously.’ With that, Jeongin sends Seungmin a quick grin, waves, and ducks out of sight. Seungmin hopes no one sees him and attacks the massive great  _ dragon  _ crawling around the walls of the castle.

Seungmin manages to slip out of the great hall after an hour and a half, the shocked and awed gasps from the cockatrices and the cutting of the blackbird pie still ringing in his ears as he makes his way outside. Jeongin meets him at the gate, instead of the edges of the woods, and Seungmin falls into step with him.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks.

‘The mountains,’ Jeongin answers, passing Seungmin something. Seungmin unwraps it. It’s a thick woolen cloak. ‘You get cold so easily,’ Jeongin explains, helping Seungmin put it on. Seungmin wonders if Jeongin knows that a cloak isn’t really the most difficult item of clothing to put on. ‘I don’t want you to fall ill.’

‘Thank you,’ Seungmin says, tugging the cloak closer around him. It smells like the ash of Jeongin’s cave; perhaps it’s been lying around in his cave for a while. ‘You’re normally very warm, though. Is it the fire?’

‘It’s in my bones, I think,’ Jeongin muses, ushering Seungmin off the road. ‘I thought perhaps it would still be too cold for you where we’re going. I’m not very warm like this.’

‘Fair enough,’ Seungmin says, smiling as the heat in the air around him multiplies tenfold, and Jeongin cradles him in his cupped claws before jumping up into the air.

After a while, they touch down on the mountaintop. The cool night air blows away the dregs of Seungmin’s nausea, contrasting nicely with Jeongin’s crisp heat.

‘So what is it?’

Jeongin slips into his human body again, to better fit on the mountaintop, and takes Seungmin’s arm, leading him into the sparse grove at the top. ‘Look at this,’ he whispers, pointing, and Seungmin looks at this.

_ ‘Wow.’ _

_ Wow  _ encompasses all that Seungmin feels - there’s a  _ tree, _ and it’s  _ floating, _ its tangle of roots filling the air, empty space between it and the ground, stars shining through the gaps in its leaves, and through the gap between the tree and the rocky ground.

‘How is it doing that?’ Seungmin asks, gasping as some of the stars start moving; fireflies flicker in and out of the tangle of roots almost hitting the ground.

Seungmin feels Jeongin shrug at his side. ‘I’m not sure. Ask the bloke with the funny hat who was messing around here last winter.’

Seungmin scoffs. He doesn’t look away from the tree, noticing new things all the time - the brilliant hues of its leaves, the wonderful patterns of its bark, the creatures skittering about in the tangle of roots - it’s all so magnificent. He itches to draw it, to take notes and measurements and research.

‘Here,’ Jeongin hands Seungmin something. Seungmin stares down at the paper, inkpot and pen bemusedly. ‘I thought you might like to draw it,’ Jeongin shrugs. ‘I got the paper and things off Changbin.’

‘Thank you.’ Seungmin makes his way closer to the tree, taking it in, deciding from which angle he’ll draw it, looking at the ground for fallen leaves to make pressings and tracings from.

‘Are you cold?’ Jeongin asks. Seungmin has been drawing and making notes for an hour now. He looks up, surprised. 

‘A little bit,’ he realises, looking down at his ink-splattered hands.

‘Come here.’ Jeongin pulls Seungmin towards him, opening his mouth. In the back of his throat, something is  _ shining. _

_ ‘You can breathe fire like this?’ _

‘Yes?’ Jeongin closes his mouth and looks at Seungmin, bemused. ‘Did you not know?’

‘It never came up,’ Seungmin says. ‘But if you can, start a fire. I’m stuffed from the feast, but I brought you a few sausages from the kitchen. You can cook them here.’

Jeongin takes the sausages. ‘Thank you, little knight,’ he murmurs, squeezing Seungmin’s hand. ‘But I don’t need to cook them? I can eat them raw.’

Seungmin blinks at Jeongin. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ Jeongin chuckles. He plops down on the ground, cross-legged, and tugs Seungmin down next to him. They huddle together, Jeongin eating his sausages and Seungmin sketching the tree, well into the night.

* * *

‘So,’ Jaehyung says, clapping his hands together. ‘You won’t believe this, Bri, but I think we’re lost.’

‘It’s _ Younghyun,’ _ Younghyun sighs, clapping his hand down on Jaehyung’s shoulder to stop him from moving forward. ‘How are we lost? Weren’t we just taking a shortcut to get back to the castle?’

Jaehyung winces. ‘Do you remember how we set out earlier tonight to be back at the castle in time for the jousting tomorrow?’

‘Yes?’ Younghyun’s hand slips down Jaehyung’s arm, tangling their fingers together nervously. Jaehyung squeezes his hand.

‘Look at the sun, Bri.’

Younghyun looks at the sun. The sun is currently high in the sky, meaning that it is almost certainly past mid-day. ‘Blast it.’

‘We didn’t even hear any mysterious voices,’ Jaehyung says mournfully, plopping down on the path. Younghyun settles next to him, and Jaehyung rests his head on Younghyun’s shoulder. ‘I thought we’d actually get where we wanted to, on _ time.’ _

‘It’s a good thing neither of us are jousting,’ Younghyun muses, patting Jaehyung’s head sympathetically. ‘And Sung isn’t either, and Wonpil is probably there and watching Seungmin. We’re not missing anything we promised to watch.’

‘I suppose so,’ Jaehyung says, sliding down to rest his head on Younghyun’s lap. ‘I’m going to sleep. You sleep too. Maybe we’ll wake up at the castle.’

‘Maybe,’ Younghyun smiles, tangling his fingers in Jaeyhung’s hair. As they drift off, the faint sound of cheers grows louder.

* * *

Seungmin is in the stables, brushing down Puppy, still in his armour after the jousting, when the horses start nickering agitatedly. He glances at the door.

‘Jeongin?’

‘I won’t come in,’ Jeongin says, leaning against the doorframe. He shoots Seungmin a quick, sweet smile. ‘I’ll scare the horses. I just came to say congratulations. You were amazing today.’ His grin turns cheeky. ‘Would you say I was right to be biased?’

Seungmin puts down his hoof-pick and makes his way towards Jeongin. ‘Thank you,’ he murmurs, pulling off his helmet. ‘I saw you on top of a turret? How come you weren’t sitting with Changbin and Hyunjin?’

‘Better view,’ Jeongin shrugs, reaching for Seungmin’s gauntleted hand. ‘You were amazing.’

Seungmin flushes. ‘Thank you,’ he says shyly, scuffing his toe on the ground. Jeongin squeezes his hand; Seungmin squeezes back. ‘Oh!’ Seungmin reaches inside his armour, where he’d tucked away Jeongin’s favour. ‘Here. I dedicated my win to you.’

Jeongin blinks at him, wide-eyed. ‘Really?’ His fingers tighten their grip on Seungmin’s, almost painfully. There seems to be a bit of steam floating around Jeongin’s face.

‘Yes,’ Seungmin says softly. He pulls off his gauntlet and lets his hand hover in front of Jeongin’s cheek. The sudden bravery surprises him - but then, on the field, he’d been so  _ excited, _ the blood rushing through his veins, pulsing, and he’d  _ won, _ and Jeongin had  _ been there,  _ glinting gold on his turret, and for a moment Seungmin had thought he could do everything. ‘Is that all right?’

Jeongin presses forward, his cheek just grazing Seungmin’s hand. ‘More than all right,’ he whispers, as Seungmin traces his thumb along Jeongin’s cheek, marvelling at how  _ soft  _ and  _ warm  _ and  _ right  _ it feels. ‘Thank you.’

Seungmin opens his mouth; Jeongin, too, to say something, and he’s just about to give voice to the things tumbling around in his head, and Jeongin’s eyes are  _ shining  _ in the dim light of the stables but- 

Lady Jeongyeon saunters into the stables, whistling loudly. ‘Oh,’ she says, staring at the two of them. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise…’

Seungmin steps back, mortified, and Jeongin makes a sound that resembles nothing so much as a shrieking kettle, before dashing out.

‘My apologies,’ Jeongyeon says. Seungmin sighs.

* * *

Minho is in his and Chan’s room in the castle, mending a white tunic with bright red wool for the sake of it, when someone nudges open the door.

‘Minho,’ Seungmin says, twisting his fingers nervously. ‘Can I ask you something?’

Minho takes his feet off the chair next to him. ‘Go ahead.’ He’d been hoping that Seungmin would come to him, or Chan, or Wonpil, or one of the others; after the tournament - despite winning - it had been as if, along with all the adrenaline from the tournament, all the excitement had washed out of Seungmin. He’s been staring pensively at objects not meant to be stared pensively at for days, and he hasn’t slipped off into the forest for a while.

Seungmin picks up Soonie, sits down, and places her on his lap. He strokes her tentatively. ‘Are you happy with Chan?’ he blurts out.

‘Of course,’ Minho says, surprised. He puts down his mending and turns to face Seungmin properly. ‘Why would I not be? What brought this on, Minnie?’

Seungmin shuffles on the chair, fondling Soonie’s ears. ‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant to ask. How did you  _ know  _ you would be happy with Chan?’ 

‘I loved him?’

‘And how did you  _ know  _ you loved him?’

‘Don’t tell any of the boys this,’ Minho says. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it from Jisung.’

Seungmin nods.

‘He made me feel warm and fuzzy,’ Minho shrugs. ‘I wanted to spend most of my time with him and stupid things like plucking a chicken were fun if he was there.’

‘That’s surprisingly nice,’ Seungmin says, absentmindedly dragging his fingers through Soonie’s fur.

Minho shrugs again. ‘It’s the Power Of Love, shouldn’t it be nice?’ Seungmin raises an eyebrow. ‘So,’ Minho continues, shuffling forward to fix Seungmin with his patented I’m-Going-To-Tease-You-Now smirk, ‘why do you ask? Is it the reason you keep going to the forest?’

Seungmin’s face turns almost the same shade of Minho’s wool. ‘Yes. Thank you for helping me to get a better understanding of things.’

‘Of course,’ Minho pats Seungmin’s shoulder. ‘Can I meet them one day?’

‘Definitely,’ Seungmin says, getting up with more purpose in his step. ‘Thanks again, Minho.’

Minho waves him off cheerily, happy at the new pep in Seungmin’s step.

* * *

Seungmin had  _ planned  _ to go to the forest immediately. He’d  _ wanted  _ to talk to Jeongin, to make sure they were both on the same page. At the gate, however, he met Sir Shownu. Sir Shownu had been in the process of regaling Hongjoong and Hwanwoong with the tale of how he had vanquished a beastly dragon far in the West, and they had been listening open-mouthed, as Shownu described in great detail how his lance had put an end to the Horrible Reign of the Dragon, and he says Dragon with a capital ‘d’.

Seungmin still makes his way into the forest, but there’s an ugly taste in his mouth. He’s  _ already  _ spent the better part of a week staring at things blankly, and hearing Shownu’s story just feels  _ ugly  _ in a way he can’t quite describe. He’s  _ scared  _ of giving voice to the thoughts and feelings tumbling around inside him. What if Jeongin feels differently? Or what if Jeongin looks at him and sees a  _ knight,  _ sworn to protect the kingdom from creatures like him, when Seungmin would rather slice off his own hand than raise it against Jeongin?

Shownu is someone Seungmin respects. It’s not  _ his  _ fault his story makes Seungmin feel icky.

Seungmin wanders, lonely, significantly  _ lonelier  _ than a cloud, and eventually he finds himself half-way up a tree, sitting nestled between the bases of two big branches, in the stare-blankly-at-nothing-and-think-in-vain-of-what-he-can-do part of his soul-searching. He hears a whoosh of wings, and feels the leaves around him fluttering. Seungmin doesn't look up, buries his head further into his knees, doesn’t say a word. The whooshing disappears and soon he hears the unmistakable sound of someone tripping over a pile of neatly-stacked armour. Seungmin knows this sound very well because Jisung is very fond of making it, by tripping over Seungmin’s armour no matter how discreetly and conveniently he places it. Honestly, Seungmin could bury his armour in a hole in the middle of the deepest part of the forest and Jisung would still find it and trip on it.

Seungmin can hear Jeongin shuffling around at the base of the tree, neatly re-stacking the armour and sinking down to sit at the base of the tree.

Seungmin stays where he is. It’s bad enough that he’s friends with a dragon, right? A being that might one day turn on them all and attack the village. A being that he’s sworn to protect people from. So it’s bad enough that they’re friends, but falling in  _ love? _ That’s even worse, surely?

‘Seungmin,’ Jeongin says, concerned, and it’s more the fact that Jeongin had called him  _ Seungmin  _ and not  _ little knight _ that has Seungmin shifting on the branch to peer down at Jeongin.

‘How did you find me?’ Seungmin asks. ‘I don’t even have Puppy with me today.’

‘You don’t need a horse for me to find you,’ Jeongin says, leaning back, resting his head against the bark of the tree. ‘Most trees don’t have a pile of armour at the bottom, or such pretty flowers growing on their boughs. Also, you’re not as quiet as you think you are when you’re walking through my forest.’

Seungmin hums, inching down the tree a little. Jeongin is a little shameless, he’s realised. 

‘Are you all right?’ Jeongin asks, toying with a root sticking out of the ground.

‘I think so,’ Seungmin says, slipping down a little more. ‘I just needed to think. What about you? Are you all right?’

Jeongin glances up at Seungmin. ‘You’re here,’ he says simply, as if that’s all the answer Seungmin needs. Perhaps he’s tasked himself with saying an inordinate amount of shameless things to Seungmin. It doesn’t help Seungmin’s heart in its attempts to become a butterfly.

After a while, Seungmin finds himself sitting next to Jeongin. Jeongin doesn’t turn to look at him, staring at the ground with a small smile, but he shuffles closer to Seungmin, so that their arms are brushing. There are pins and needles wherever their arms are touching.

‘Are you going to turn evil and burn our village to the ground and steal the King?’ Seungmin asks, edging closer so that he and Jeongin are pressed together all along their sides.

Jeongin chuckles. ‘No. Why would I turn evil? I don’t want to burn the village down, and why would I want a king when I have a knight?’

That’s the right answer. Seungmin is stupid to have been worrying. Jeongin wouldn’t hurt them. It’s all right, he thinks - his feelings are all right. Seungmin rests his head on Jeongin’s shoulder, feeling Jeongin rest his cheek on the crown of his head, and closes his eyes. ‘I need to tell you something later,’ he murmurs, already sleepy from the happy haze of finally getting his thoughts out of him and just sitting with Jeongin.

‘I look forward to hearing it.’ Jeongin’s arm curls around Seungmin’s shoulders, tugging him closer, and the warm blaze of Jeongin lures him to sleep.

(Later, they’re sitting on top of Jeongin’s cave, eating some berries that Jeongin assures Seungmin are safe to eat. Jeongin’s hand is right next to Seungmin’s on the rock, and Seungmin lets their fingers brush once before he takes Jeongin’s hand in his.

‘The thing I needed to tell you,’ he starts, and Jeongin takes his other hand and squeezes. The sparkles in his eyes dance in the light. They’re sitting knee-to-knee, and when Jeongin leans forward a little, they’re almost nose to nose. ‘I think I might be in love with you.’

‘That’s good,’ Jeongin says, leaning forward more, resting his hand on Seungmin’s cheek. ‘I think I might be in love with you too, little knight.’

Seungmin huffs out a laugh, turns his head slightly to press his lips to Jeongin’s palm. Jeongin gives him a blinding smile, and lifts Seungmin’s hand to drop a kiss on it. As the sun hits the rocks around them, and filters through the trees, it turns the air golden for a moment. Seungmin has a feeling that things will only get more golden from now on.)

**Author's Note:**

> so!! i wrote this Very Quickly; constructive criticism would be much appreciated haha. i really enjoyed writing this - as i said in the tags, T H White's The Once and Future King is one of my favourite books, so it was really fun writing this, and putting in little nods to things that happened in the actual book. drop a comment if you liked it - comments are my lifeblood, i'd really appreciate it uwu!
> 
> here's my [tumblr](https://jeonghoneyss.tumblr.com/), feel free to drop by and say hi! i talk about fun things like how half my wordcount for one of my wips is just the words 'Chan' and 'smile' and 'gentle', mostly together
> 
> if you see me again before february please shout at me; i have mocks i need to study for


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